Rather Live Another Rainy Day
by Kimpisces
Summary: Kai and an OC are getting married, Tala's girlfriend's moving in with him and Rei's being stalked...COMPLETED! Sequel to "Kai has a girlfriend" series
1. Chapter One

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Written by Kimpisces  
  
Rating: pg13  
  
Warnings: uh...swearing and that's about it  
  
Acknowledges: Sarah (Kai Mine) who inspired this story ^_^ Also Steph, who will never actually read this story because she also helped to inspire it orginally!  
  
Summary: Kai and Shanna (an OC) are getting married, Rei's being stalked and Tala's moving in with his girlfriend. Is it destined to be a rainy day or will the sun come out and play?  
  
Chapter One: Wedding Plans  
  
Kai squeezed the hand that he was holding onto as he looked through the pictures of the churches that April had come up with on such a short notice. Just goes to show you how thrilled April was with Kai's choice to marry Shanna.   
  
Kai turned to look at Shanna out of the corner of his eyes, still against showing his feelings openingly. Shanna was beautiful, there was no getting around that. Her black hair was straight, and fell around her shoulders, framing her face, making her look like a dark angel. Shanna's eyes were green and always full of mischief and Kai had to admit that he would never want it any other way. Shanna only came upto Kai's shoulder but Kai didn't care, he thought that Shanna was that perfect height.   
  
Come to think of it, Kai thought that everything that Shanna was and stood for was perfect. There wasn't anything wrong with his dark angel, not at all. Everything she did made him smile, even if he didn't want to admit it. There wans't anything that Shanna wouldn't do for him and there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for her. Which was why Kai thought that marriage was the best thing for the both of them. The next step; the next test. The next thing for Shanna to excel in and for Kai to watch her do in awe.   
  
Shanna noticed that Kai was staring at her and turned to look at him, their eyes catching for a moment before they both looked away like love-sick teenagers. Which, Kai supposed, was exactly what they were and there was no way around in. If Kai had his way, they would remain love-sick teenagers if this was the way that love-sick teenagers were to feel everyday of their lives.   
  
"Anyways. The next thing we have to figure out, after we look for a church-" April started and then looked at Kai and Shanna and shook her head. "You two are supposed to be listening to me. How am I supposed to help you if you don't even pay attention to me?" April pretended to be insulted but Kai could tell that she was truly pleased that Kai had found as much happiness as it was obvious he had.   
  
Shanna turned a light color of red, a color that Kai thought suited her exceptionally well. Then again, Kai thought that she looked exceptionally well in anything, that was just the way that Shanna was. She was beautiful and there was no way around it. Even April, Tala, Rei and Lolli agreed with Kai on this. Of course, Rei thought that Lolli was even more beautiful and Tala thought that April was a goddess but that wasn't the point. They all believed, at a mutual, general level, that Shanna was beautiful and that was all that Kai cared about.   
  
Kai realized that Shanna had said something and he brought himself out of his daydream stage to hear the last bit of it. "-go to that store for it." Shanna looked over at Kai, expecting him to add his own opinion. Of course Kai couldn't do this because he didn't know what had happened. "Don't you?" Shanna prompted.  
  
Kai shrugged, feeling his own cheeks turn red as he realized he had been caught in the act of not listening. "I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention." Kai lowered his eyes so that he didn't have to look either of the girls in the face. "What were we talking about?"  
  
April giggled and rolled her eyes. "You know, I have work to do at the office anyways. I'll let you two be alone for a while and I'll come back later when Kai's better able to pay attention to what's going on around him." April leaned down and gave Shanna a hug. "Congraduations Shanna. You'll have a great wedding, even if I have to single-handedly make sure that it turns out to be a good one."   
  
Shanna smiled. "You won't, I'll help and so will Kai." Shanna returned April's hug. "Thanks for all you're doing though." Shanna smiled. "This will be the best wedding I have ever been to at this rate."  
  
April nodded and looked at her watch and sighed. "I really should be going. I have a report I need to have filed before tomorrow morning and it's a long one." April ruffled Kai's hair and then turned to leave. "Bye."  
  
Kai watched April leave and smiled, turning to Shanna and placing a kiss on her nose. "I love you. Did I ever tell you that?" Kai nuzzled her neck, not letting Shanna answer and pulled her up to a standing position. "Come on, the bedroom's feeling upset because we haven't used it for such a long time." Kai purred when Shanna followed him upstairs and closed their bedroom door behind them so that they'd have a bit more privacy for the acts that they were going to preform.  
  
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Rei sighed as he signed yet another fan's picture and posed with her so that she could have a picture to fuss over for the rest of her obsession with him. Kai was lucky, he had gotten out of this. Then again, he was getting married, he probably deserved to get out of this sort of thing. Rei sighed, it had been a long day. All he wanted to do was to go home, eat the wonderful meal that Lolli had promised him for supper tonight, cuddle with her on the couch while they watched some movie together and then go to bed, no questions asked.   
  
Rei realized he was being a little bit selfish. He had always wanted to go to these kind of things when he had been younger so that he could watch his latest hero beyblade with people and get his picture tooken with the prior mentioned hero. He shouldn't feel a sense of hatred towards people that were doing the same thing that he had done most of his life. It was stupid. Rei probably just needed a vacation from this for a little while and then he'd be fine. Or so he hoped.  
  
Rei stretched his legs and waved a final goodbye to his fans and then exited out the backdoor with Max, Kenny and Tyson. With a quick goodbye to the guys, he turned to the entrance to the alley and ran out it, desperate to get home, wanting to feel that warmth that only Lolli could bring to his body. Rei smiled as he thought about it.   
  
Someone was following him. Rei could sense it before he even saw the person behind him. Obviously it was a crazed fan that hadn't made it to the table before they had to call it quits. Oh well, Rei would make it up to her later, maybe tomorrow or something. Most likely a fan like that would find him before he would be able to find her. With that thought in mind, Rei picked up his pace, taking a left and climbing the steps that led to his apartment building.   
  
Rei unlocked the main door to the lobby and then closed it and went to the elevator, not caring that the stairs would get him more exercise, just wanting to get upstairs as fast as he could and with the fatigue Rei felt at the moment, he could take him hours to climb up those stairs. Rei wasn't into that long of a wait and so promptly pressed the elevator button.  
  
The girl was in the building, Rei's sensed told him. Again he didn't have to look to know that it was that same girl and that she had stopped by the front door as to not alert Rei of her position. Too bad she had anyways, Rei senses had been increased by the fact that he had to deal with these kinds of fans all of the time and by the fact that he refused to have a bodyguard.   
  
Rei quickly stepped into the elevator and closed the door, letting his forehead fall against the elevator door. He couldn't wait until he got to Lolli, this job really was giving him a headache. Maybe Lolli would want to go up to that cabin again, that was a nice place, far away from people. A weekend at that place might just get Rei back up on his feet, not to mention the fact that it would be a prime excuse to have to spend a lot of 'personal' time with his girlfriend and that was always good.  
  
Rei decided that over supper he would ask Lolli if she would go with him to the cabin. Rei firmly set his mind on that and then pressed the button for his floor and stood back to watch the numbers change on the elevator dial.   
  
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April checked her watch for the thrieth time since she had arrived in the room, fifteen minutes ago. It wasn't that she was bored with what she was doing, this was the most interesting report she had to do in the past two years of working at her brother's business. It was just she was supposed to cook something for Tala tonight and she didn't want to leave it too late or she may have to disappoint him by ordering a pizza like she had done for the past three days. Plus, Tala wanted to get some of those boxes in their new apartment unpacked before they brought more in and April had no free time to do that tomorrow so she had to get it done today.  
  
April closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind so that she could finish this report but she found that she couldn't do it. There was just too many other things on her mind and there wasn't anything she could do about it. Kai's wedding, Tala and her moving in together, this report, that stupid place she was supposed to go and check up on in a couple of days plus countless other things that she was expected to do around here. It was enough to make any normal girl drop to her knees and beg for mercy. However April wasn't a normal girl and she wasn't about to ask for mercy, even if she did need it.  
  
April stretched her arms, trying to knock the kinks out of them and then turned back to the computer, typing out her report in a way that resembled a robot. A robot with no feelings or emotions, a robot that could do anything on time and was expected to do everything because she could do so. April was beginning to feel more and more like this rebot but she wasn't going to stop now. No one knew that she was under so much stress and she wasn't about to tell anyone either. Especially not Tala.  
  
Tala, his name made April feel weak in the knees. She loved his and she couldn't wait until they were finally actually living together under the same roof. It was be such an approvement over having to live so far apart. Practically the whole city had separated them before so this was a definite change. April smiled as she thought about it, she couldn't wait for the moving to be over. Of course that was going to take a few more days but it would be worth it to wake up every morning to the feeling of Tala's arms wrapped around her.   
  
April hurriedly finished her report, read over it once and then sent it to her grandfather, and then turned off her computer and rushed out the door to her car, hoping that she would be able to get to her apartment before Tala did and that she would be able to cook him dinner. God she missed doing simple stuff like that. Kai and her grandfather was retiring next year and so he was putting more responsibilities on their heads since soon they would all be. April thought this was a good idea but god was it tiring.  
  
April turned on the radio and blared it as she headed for her house, going so fast that she was sure she was speeding but she didn't care. All she wanted to do was go home and forget about all of her responsibilities for the time being. All of the ones that didn't involve Tala at least.  
  
{A/N: What do you think of the first chapter? Kinda all over the place isn't it. Oh well, hopefully the next chapter brings it back together. ^_^ Well see you next chapter} 


	2. Chapter Two

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Written by Kimpisces  
  
Rating: pg13  
  
Responses to Reviewer(s):  
  
Miekkie: *is glad that you liked it* i thought that people would hate this but it's nice to know that they don't ^_^  
  
Invisible Reviewer: uh..is this soon enough?? lol anyways...everything that I said to Miekkie applies to you too ^_^  
  
Chapter Two: Too Much  
  
Lolli looked at her watch and sighed. It was a little after nine o'clock in the morning. Rei would have probably just woken up a few minutes ago and would probably just have found her note a few seconds ago. Lolli sighed, it broke her heart sometimes that she had to leave him alone, in bed, in order to go and work on an assignment. It wasn't fair to Rei and she knew it. She just didn't know how to get around it.  
  
"Lolli?" A male voice asked her softly. "Are you still with us?"  
  
Lolli shook her head to clear her brain and bring her back to her current situation. She turned to the boy that had called her, Rudy Goldenspring, and nodded to him, to let him know that she was paying attention again. Rudy nodded, smiling and then continued his speech about the girl, that they were going to interview, 's background. Lolli didn't really listen to a word that Rudy said, she had already read up on this girl and she didn't need her memory refreshed. As far as she was concerned, she shouldn't have to be here for this. Unfortunately, her fellow colleagues didn't feel the same way.  
  
There was a thousand things that she would rather be doing right now. And pretty much all of them had something to do with Rei. Not that that was unexpected, after all, they were living together, they were going out, they were thinking about sharing the rest of their lives together. Everything in her life pretty much revolved around Rei anyways, that was just the way she was, the way Rei was, the way it should always be.   
  
Lolli couldn't imagine how bleak the world would seem without Rei by her side. It was just be terrible, horrible, undeniably insane. Lolli would rather kill herself than remain in a world like that. Even if it meant leaving April and Shanna behind. April and Shanna were her best friends and all, but Rei was so much more.   
  
Rei was her best friend virutally. He was her lover as well but that didn't mean that he came home just to get laid and didn't know anything about her. More often than not, Rei would stay up with Lolli in the middle of the night, just sitting with her at the kitchen table, sipping hot chocolate with her. No words passed between them at those times and Lolli had to admit that they didn't need to. It was just the fact that Rei was sitting there, with her, when he could be doing other things, that said it all. It was those kinds of little things that proved to Lolli just how much he loved her and how much he would give up for her. And how much she would give up for him.  
  
"Alrighty then. If there's no questions about what we should do, then lets get a move on and go and interview this girl before she decides to leave down." Rudy joked. A few people laughed, but not many.  
  
Lolli stood up and left the room, with a few people on her heels and they all went out to the three vechiles that they had decided would be used for transportation. Lolli's car was among them. Not that Lolli minded, she preferred driving a whole bunch of people in her car, than being stuck in someone else's. That was just the way she was.   
  
Lolli turned on the car and waited until everyone was in and then backed out of her parking spot and headed for the farm that the girl was on. This would be an interesting interview. Lolli had choosen it for a reason;  
  
This girl was obsessed with Rei.  
  
O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O  
  
April woke up late that morning and cursed herself for sleeping in. She was probably behind on a bunch of paperwork that she needed to get done. She didn't know for sure, she wasn't awake enough to remember. She looked to her right, to where Tala was supposed to be sleeping and found that he wasn't there. Which meant one thing, that he had woken up earlier and hadn't woken her up.  
  
April jumped up and changed into her work clothes and then hurriedly brushed her hair, not bothering with make-up this morning. Her only consciencous thought was that she was late for work. April then ran downstairs and straight into Tala's arms, who had been standing at the bottom of the stairs, obviously getting ready to re-climb them.  
  
April pushed him away and glared at him. "I can't believe you didn't wake me up." April pushed past him and ran into the kitchen, checking the kettle and was pleased to discover that it was still hot. She poured herself a cup of tea and grabbed a bagel. She was about to rush out the door when Tala suddenly appeared in front of it, blocking the way out from her. April glared at him and told him to move. Tala merely shook his head. "No. You're stressing yourself out. Take a deep breath and sit down for breakfast with me and then I'll let you go."  
  
April looked at him, wondering how in the world he could think it would be that simple. "You don't understand. I have to get to work now so that I can get done my work sooner so that I can get to Kai's house before seven o'clock tonight so that I can help him out, just like I promise I would. That way I won't have run back to the office after that just to finish the work that I could be doing right this second."  
  
Tala blinked, trying to take in what April had said and interpret it as fast as she had said it. It obviously didn't work. "April...you're stressing yourself out. If you continue to do this to yourself I'm going to have to phone Kai and tell him to make sure that you don't go over to his house to help him anymore." Tala ran his hand through his red hair. "You can't do this to yourself April. It's not healthy to run yourself until you drop."  
  
April shrugged. "I don't care if it's healthy or not. I have to get it done. That's part of the way it is. I have to get my work down, and help Kai and move in with you all at the same time, plus I need to eat and sleep and breath. I swear Tala, I can't do this all already and you standing in front of that door isn't helping me."  
  
Tala glanced down at the floor and then looked back up at April and shook his head. 'If me moving in with you is making you that much more stressed, than April, I'm sorry, but I don't think we should move in together."  
  
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Shanna sipped her coffee as she flipped the pages in the photo album over, looking at the different churches that April had gotten them pictures of. Shanna continued to turn the page until she was suddenly made breatheless by a certain church. Shanna touched Kai's hand, which made him look up from the photo album that he was looking at. Shanna motioned to the picture that she was looking at and Kai bent over, looking it over.  
  
"It's a beautiful church." Kai said and looked Shanna in the eye. "Is this the one you want so far?" Kai put his hand up, motioning for Shanna not to speak. "Remember where it is and continue to look through the photo albums and then come to a decision after you've seen them all."   
  
Shanna nodded. That was smart, trust her Kai to think of doing that. Only her Kai would be smart enough to think of something like even while he was as excited as she was. Shanna continued to look through the pictures but only half saw them and when she did, she found herself comparing them to the picture of the church she had already seen.   
  
Kai noticed how Shanna's eyes only seemed to skim over the pictures now and smiled. That meant that she had truly fallen in love with a church. Prehaps when April came over, he would ask her what church it was and where they could find it. Then tomorrow, Kai would take Shanna there so that Kai could watch her face as she saw the church that she wanted so badly for the first time in real life. Kai grinned and found that he couldn't wait to do that. It would be fun.  
  
The phone rang and Kai got up to answer it, letting Shanna continue to look over the pictures. "Hello, this is Kai Hiwatari speaking. Can I help you?" Kai hoped that it wasn't someone from work, he really didn't want to deal with that kind of stuff at the moment.  
  
"Hi Kai, it's Tala." Kai smiled, thinking that this was just a friendly, no strings attached call from Tala. "I was calling to ask you something. It's kinda important." Tala took a breath. "I think that April's taking too much stuff on her shoulders."  
  
"What do you mean Tala?" Kai asked.  
  
"Well, she's helping you with your wedding right." Tala asked, but he didn't wait for a response before going on. "She's also working on this special branch of the company and taking of all these different reports and reviews and stuff." Tala sighed. "Then, on top of all of that, she's moving in with me. It's not that I don't appreciate how much she does. It's just, she really is starting to collapse under all the pressure." Tala shook his head. "She was having a spaz attack because she was fifteen minutes late Kai. That's never happened before, usually she would just shrug it off but she didn't today. Kai..I'm worried about her."  
  
Kai nodded. "I understand why. If Shanna was like that, I don't know what I'd do. I'm going to go up to the office today and I'll see what I can do about lowering the pressure on her shoulder. About the other two things...I don't know if I can ask her not to help us out on the wedding."  
  
Tala sighed. "You don't have to. Just get the company to lighten up on her. I've already told her that we're not moving in just yet." Tala sighed again. "I want to move in with her Kai, I really do, but I can't right now. It's just putting too much on her shoulder. So I'm going to wait until after the wedding and then I'll try again." There was a pause. "She started to cry when I told her that Kai. I didn't know what to do. It hurt me so much to see her like that but I knew it would just get worse as time went on so I put my foot down Kai."  
  
"I would have done the same thing in your position Tala, I'm sure of it. And it probably will hurt for awhile but just remember why you're doing this and you'll be fine." Kai took a deep breath. "Listen, I gotta go. Talk to you later."  
  
"Yah, talk to you later." There was a click and Kai knew that Tala had hung up so he did the same. 


	3. Chapter Three

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Rated: Pg-13  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but April. Shanna belongs to my friend Sarah, and Lolli belongs to my friend Steph. Tala, Kai, Rei and the rest of them belong to whoever it is who own beyblade (*apologizes but she seriously doesn't know*). And I think that's it ^_^  
  
Chapter Three: Ignore your heart  
  
Rei sat down at the kitchen table, sipping his orange pekoe tea(I love this kind of tea! ^_^} and reading a letter that his publicity manager had sent him. Rei sighed as his eyes skimmed over all of the places he had to be over the next week. There wasn't a single day he didn't have booked solid, which meant that he wasn't going to be able to spend any time with Lolli, like he had wanted. Unless...  
  
Rei looked at his day planner and was pleased to see that he didn't have anything planned for tonight. He knew that Lolli had an interview today but surely she'd be done before eight, probably way before that, and she hadn't mentioned anything else for today, so it was profitable to assume that she didn't have anything else to do today.  
  
Rei took another sip o fhis tea and took out the phone book, looking for somewhere to take Lolli for their date. He thumbed through the restaurant section, loking for a good Italian restaurant (A/N:I love Italian food) . That would a good place to take Lolli for a date and then they could go to the park for a walk or something afterwards. Rei didn't really care where they ended up, as long as he could spend some time with Lolli before his schedule got too busy to do so.   
  
Rei dailed Lolli's newspaper's headquaters and left a message with the secretary to get Lolli to call him back whenever Lolli could and then he went upstairs to get ready for his only appointment of the day. An interview {A/N: how ironic...both him and Lolli have only an interview scheduled today}  
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
Shanna sighed as she went through the mail for the second time this morning. There were letters from her cousins in Sakatchewan{A/N:That's in canada for those of you who don't know ^_^}, letters from her old friends back in bc {A//n: also in canada}, letters from her other cousins, a letter from her brother and even a letter from that guy that took their dog after they had to move but not a single letter from her parents. Kai had sent out the invitations two weeks ago, there was no way it would take her parents this long to answer something as important as that.  
  
Shanna eyed the phone, and pondered phoning her parents. It couldn't hurt. Maybe her mom had just not gotten around to writing her yet, or maybe her letter was lost in the mail. Maybe, though not likely since it was sent special delivery, Kai's invitation hadn't gotten there yet. It wasn't lost, no not the invitations, otherwise no one would have gotten theirs.   
  
What was wrong? Shanna asked herself and then shook her head. She was probably just being antsy. The letter would probably get here tomorrow, there was no reason for her to fret.  
  
The phone rang and Shanna jumped. She laughed shakingly at herself and picked up the phone on it's fourth ring and held it to her ear. "Hello, Hiwatari Residence, this is Shanna speaking." {A/n: *sighs* I can't remember Shanna's last name...lol}  
  
"There you are darling. I've been calling everywhere for you. April isn't home, and neither was Lolli but her nice boyfriend, what's his name, Rei? Anyways, he told me that you might be over here." Shanna's mother's voice announced from over the phone line. "So tell me, did you and Kai finally make up or are you over there getting some of your things?"  
  
Shanna was puzzled. Did her mother really think that they would be getting married if they had broken up? That's stupid! Shows you how smart her mother was. "Of course we made up. Didn't you figure that out from the invitation?"  
  
"What invitation dear?"  
  
Shanna rolled her eyes. "Mother, do you try to act dumb or is it just natural?" Shanna sighed exasperily. "The wedding invitation. You'd think that you'd remember that your little girl is getting married."  
  
"You're doing what?" Shanna's mother asked. "When? Who? Why?"  
  
"Mom?" Shanna asked. "Did you get the invitation that Kai sent you?"  
  
"No." Shanna's mother sighed. "You're getting married to Kai? Well I guess you two really did make-up."  
  
"Yes you could say that." Shanna heard the door open. "Kai's home, mom. I gotta go and talk to him for a minute. I'll call you back tomorrow? Alright?" Shanna waved to Kai when he entered the living room.  
  
"Alright then" Her mother hung up.  
  
Shanna turned to Kai after replacing the phone on it's cradle. Shanna put her hands on her hips and stared Kai down. "Kai Hiwatari! Did you or did you not send my mother an invitation to our wedding?" The look on Kai's face said it all and Shanna glared fiercely. "KAI!"  
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
April sat in her office, trying to rub the much needed sleep out of her eyes. It wouldn't do to have her falling asleep, especially not with two reports more she needed to do before she left today.  
  
And had to go back to her own apartment. That thought intruded into her mind, making her remember what Tala had said. April blinked back the tears that threatened to fall and tried to concentrate on her work in front of her. However, she coudln't stop hearting his voice and those words 'I don't think we should move in with each other anymore.'  
  
Why not? April asked herself stubbornly. Why couldn't they move in with each other? Why did he have to turn her away? Why? Just because she had gotten mad because he wouldn't let her go to work? That wasn't a good reason. Not at all, especially since they'd been planning this forever. It just wasn't fair.  
  
April looked at the note her secretary had left her before going off to her house and boyfriend. It read; April, Tala's phoning her almost nonstop. Please phone him back. April shook her head. Why? What would she say to him? What would he say to her? There wasn't anything to say anymore and there was no reason to just use up the phone line.  
  
April took up her computer again, and attempted to type up her report and block all thoughts of Tala out of her mind. Unfortunately, it wasn't working for her as April found that she was calling "Tara Winderspoon" the head of a certain company, "Tala". April groaned and went back and corrected it all. She finally finished her reports, after having to correct the same mistake a million times, when the phone went out.  
  
April picked it up without even thinking about it and held it up to her ear. "Hello, Hiatari's office. April Young speaking." {A/N: Is that what I said her last name was? I can't remember...*sighs* I really think that I'm bad at the whole 'last name' thing today}.   
  
"Thank god I found you. Now don't hang up. It's Tala. I just want you to know that I was stupid and I-" April hung up the phone, not wanting to hear what he had to say. Then she stared at the phone, wishing she had not hung up the phone merely so that she could hear Tala's reassuring voice for a while.   
  
April didn't know what to do. After all, what do you do about a boyfriend that called you but said you couldn't be with him anymore?  
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
Lolli stood outside of the girl's house, pausing infront of the door, poised to knock but not quite. Lolli sighed, what was she so nervous about? It was just another interview with just another girl. That was all. Trying to keep that in mind, Lolli knocked on the door and stepped back, waiting for it to open. Her news crew stood behind her, the photographer, the second writer, and the recording guy. You didn't really need that many people for this kind of thing. Lolli hoped.  
  
The door opened, and Loli found herself gasping. When you go on a story like this one, you kinda think you'd find this girl with long shaggy hair, mud all over and old clothes. That was just a stereo-type that Lolli had pictured, one she had always given to stalkers, even as a little girl. Usually she was pretty good with guessing these sort of things, but not this time.  
  
This girl had long red hair, that cascaded into bouncy curls around her waist. Bright green eyes flashed merely at Lolli, as though Lolli was an old friend that had finally gotten in touch with her again. She was taller than Lolli, by at least a good half a foot. She was about five foot eleven inches and maybe six feet. She wore a white t-shirt that had a picture of Rei on the front and black pants that had a picture of Driger on the right leg and another picture of Rei on the left. On her neck was a necklace that Lolli was almost positive she had seen Rei wear before. Had this girl hotten that close to Rei or was Lolli just imagining things?  
  
The girl slipped a lock of her hair behind her ears and smiled down at Lolli, almost as if she thought she was better than Lolli was. "Hello, I'm Crystal Cunning. You must be Lolli. Come on in, I've been waiting for you." Crystal turned around, leading Lolli and her crew into her house.   
  
Lolli looked around the house as they walked through it, her mouth wide open as her eyes moved frome one wall to another, frightened but what she was seeing. There were pictures of Rei everywhere, pictures of him laughing, pictures of him crying, pictures of him at various stadiums, pictures of him at home sleeping. How had she gotten some of these?  
  
"I sese you're admiring my collection of pictures of Rei. Lovely, isn't it. I personally took most of these pictures. They were hard to get, I admit, but there were all worth it." Crystal said. "Now, what do you want to ask me first?"  
  
'I want to tell you to get away from my Rei' Lolli thought to herself but out loud she said; "Lets start with basics and work our way up. How old are you? How many siblings? Your parents, were they married, divorced, separated, one of them maybe died?"  
  
Crystal nodded. "Well, I'm seventeen years old. I have two older brothers and a younger sister. My parents divorced when I was seven and then both of them were remarried before I was ten."  
  
Lolli took quick notes of this. "so, why exactly do you stalk Rei?"  
  
Crystal smiled. "Why that's easy."  
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
"I can't believe you Kai Hiwatari! You remembered everyone but my parents. They're the most important people I wanted you to invited." Shanna exclaimed. "How could you forget them?"  
  
Kai shrugged, not getting too worked up about this. "You didn't put them on the list."  
  
"I didn't put them on the list? I didn't put them on the-" Shanna took a deep breath, trying to keep herself from strangling Kai with her own bare hands. "I shouldn't have to put my parents on the list. They should have been the first people that you made one for."  
  
Kai shrugged again. "How was I supposed to know? I've never done this before, Shanna. I told you to make a list of everyone you wanted me to invite."  
  
"It's common sense!" Shanna said. "You always invite the parents so I didn't think that I would have to put that on there." Shanna sighed, her hands going limp at her sides. "You know what. Just forget it. I'm going to bed, I'll deal with it later."   
  
Kai watched as Shanna climbed the stairs to their room and his eyebrows creased in confusion. What had that been about? 


	4. Chapter Four

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Chapter Four: Tragedies (that looks wrong..like not spelt right..lol)  
  
Tala tried to concentrate on his job but found it getting to be impossible. How could he concentrate on protecting Julian Larson, a big company owner when they were currently in a bullet-proof glass elevator, heading up to the sixth floor of Hiwatari Inc.'s office building, just one floor below the office of his girlfriend's.  
  
Or at least the person he hopes was still his girlfriend. Tala was starting to have his doubts as she hadn't returned any of his calls all week, and Tala had left a numerous amouth of calls, both at her house and at her office. Not to mention the flowers and chocolates and stuffies that he was sending her. Tala realized that he made a mistake but was it truly that bad of one?  
  
They finally made it to their requested floor and Tala followed Mr. larson out of the elevator, taking a quick look around to see if there was anything to be concerned about. So far, nothing, but that was to be expected as Kai wasn't about to let the security be slow or weak enough to risk April's protection. Kai was as protective of his sister as Tala was of her.  
  
"We're here to see Mr. Hiwatari." Tala said to the secretary.  
  
The secretary looked up at Tala and blinked her eyes innocently. "Oh? Which one? Mr. Hiwatari senior, or his grandson, Mr. Hiwatari junior?"  
  
Tala rolled his eyes. Did it really matter? The end result would probably be the exact same for them. Oh well, Tala looked at Mr. Larson who merely shrugged. Tala sighed, he was going to be no help. "I'm not sure." Tala said finally. "Which one is available?"  
  
The girl sighed and typed something into the computer. "If you're Mr. Larson, you're booked for the younger one, Mr. Hiwatari junion, which in my opinion would probably be your best bet for your cause. He sees reason better than his grandfather does. Unfortunately, he's in a meeting right now, it went a little over schedule, but he should be here any minute now. So why don't you just go and wait in his office until he gets here."  
  
Tala thanked the girl and walked Mr. Larson into the office. Mr. Latson promptedly sat in one of the two chairs arranged in front of Kai's desk. Tala moved straight to the desk itself and leaned up against it, crossing his arms and staring at the door, waiting patiently for Kai to come through it before he would allow himself to relax.  
  
Mr. Larson was shifting side to side nervously, more nervos than Tala thought he should be for just a simple meeting. Tala was about to tell him so when a guy came through the door and into the room. Tala looked up and noticed that the intruder had a gun aimed for Mr. Larson. The rest was all instinct.  
  
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Rei was exhausted after his week under the public eye, all he wanted to do was get some sleep, next to his girlfriend most preferably. Rei unlocked the door to their apartment and walked in, carefully locking the door behind him, not wanting to have to deal with any crazed fans at the moment. Rei walked to the kitchen, dropped his keys and wallet onto the counter and lazily headed for the stairs that would lead him to his room.   
  
Only to stop as he noticed that therew as a note for him on the fridge. Rei dragged himself back over to the refridgerater and pulled the note off of it. Rei turned on the light so that he could see what was written on the piece of paper.  
  
Lolli had left him a reminder that they had a restaurant booked for eight-thirty. Rei sighed and looked at the clock, it was seven. Rei wondered if he would be able to get a quick nap before he had to go.  
  
Rei looked at the clock again and shook his head. If he went to bed right now, he'd be asleep for the night and he'd leave Lolli to feel like she was being stood up and Rei wasn't going to do that, not to Lolli, at least. So Rei dragged himself up the stairs and into the bathroom to turned on the shower and throw himself in.  
  
Rei finished his shower, wrapped a towell around his waist and exited the bathroom only to hear rattling from the kitchen. Rei was puzzled by the sound, who could be down there? "Hello? Lolli? Is that you?"  
  
The rattling stopped and Rei could hear someone ran through the kitchen and out the door. Rei ran down the stairs and stared at the open door of the apartment and then let his eyes skim the kitchen. The only thing that Rei could notice was wrong off-hand was the note from Lolli. It was gone.  
  
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Kai pushed past the reporters that somehow had made it here before Kai had a chance to get down the three flights of stairs that had separated him and the problem. Kai would really have to ask Lolli how they did it, though she would probably just tell him that it was a reporter's intuition and nothing more. Hell, it probably was.  
  
"What's going on here?" Kai asked as he reached the paramedics who were moving a body onto the stretcher.  
  
"Are you the Mr. Hiwatari that we were told they sent for?" One of them asked.  
  
Kai nodded. "That's right. My name is Kai Hiwatari. I'm one of the co-owners of Hiwatari Inc. Now tell me what's going on here please. I heard that someone got hurt but that's all I know so far."  
  
The second paramedic continued on with his job, taking care of the injured person. This caused the first paramedic to have to deal with Kai by himself. The first paramedic sighed before filling Kai in. "Mr. Larson was here on a business appointment we believe-"  
  
Kai interupted him. "Mr. Larson is hurt? I can't believe it!"  
  
The paramedic sighed. "No, Mr. Hiwatari, his bodyguard took out the gunman before he did any damage to Mr. Larson. Unfortunately the bodyguard, Tala something or another, was hit in the line of duty. Now he has a minor wound in his hip and a mild concussion as we can see so far, maybe more but nothing serious." Kai looked around and noticed the first paramedic was gone and so was Tala. "I have to go now Mr. Hiwatari. You can learn more later by phoning the hospital later."   
  
The paramedic left and Kai turned to leave as well, only to see April standing there. Kai instantly felt sorry for her and went to her and hugged her. "I'm so sorry April.  
  
April tensed up at the feeling of Kai's arms around her. "Tala..." Then she pulled away and ran to the stairs and fled down them and Kai just stared after her, not knowing what to do.  
  
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Rei didn't understand why anyone would break into his apartment to take a note. It was just stupid, completely pointless and a waste of time. It wasn't like the note contained any information that someone who wanted to, couldn't get somewhere else. It was basically public information what restaurant he was going to be at tonight.  
  
Rei entered the restaurant he was supposed to meet Lolli at and briefly looked around, wondering if any of the people already seated was the person who had broken into his house.  
  
"Hello sir. Welcome to the Rose banquet. Please tell me your name and I will take you to your table." A waitress said almost immediately on seeing Rei standing there.  
  
Rei flashed the girl a smile. "I'm Rei Con. I have a reservation for two."  
  
The girl checked the list to confirm, giving Rei a change to study the people sitting down some more. One girl in predicular caught his eye. Hadn't he seen her before? At one of his autograph signings? Rei was sure of it. Infact, he was almost positive. She got up and went to the bathroom, giving Rei no more time to try and place her.  
  
"Alright Mr. Con, just follow me." The waitress said and led him straight to a table. Rei's eyebrows creased together as they neared it. Rei was positive that it was the same table that Rei had just seen that girl at. But that couldn't be right. Rei must just be imagining things.  
  
Rei sat down at the table and began flicking through the menu, wondering when Lolli would make her appearance. Hopefully soon, Rei didn't want people to take the empty seat as an invitation to come and sit next to him.  
  
Rei took a look towards the bathroom almost by instinct and saw that girl again. She noticed him too and Rei quickly looked away, not wanting to encourage her to come over. However, Rei could hear her coming over to his table anyways.  
  
"About time you showed up." The girl said as she sat down at the table. "Do you realize that you're five minutes late?"  
  
Rei turned his head to look at the girl and found she was sitting in Lolli's chair. "Uh, excuse me. My girlfriend's coming and that's her spot, thank you."  
  
The girl shook her head. "See that's why I"m here." She sighed. "You're just not right for that girl and she's just not right for you. I know these things. I also know that Lolli is seeing someone behind your back." Her fingers snaked out and intertwined with Rei's. "I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you."  
  
Rei grabbed his hand away from hers. "What?"  
  
She chuckled. "My name is Crystal. Did I ever tell you that?"  
  
Rei's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean Lolli's been seeing someone behind my back?" Rei grabbed Crystal's hand and pulled her to him. "Tell me." Rei noticed that Crystal was now so close to him that their noses were basically touching. "TELL ME!"  
  
Crystal smiled. "Of course, but first-" Crystal leaned over and brushed Rei's lips with her own.  
  
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"Alright, whatever, I don't care. As long as you like it, I promise that I'll like it." Shanna said as Kai asked if she liked the cake that he had picked out for the wedding.  
  
Kai sighed and put down the picture of the cake. "Shanna, this is your wedding too you know. You deserve to have a say in this too. I don't like feeling as if I'm taking everything over." Kai came up behind Shanna and embraced her from behind. "You're not still upset about the whole invitation thing?" Kai kissed Shanna's neck. "Are you?"  
  
Shanna shook her head and wiggled out of Kai's grip. "Of course not. I just trust your judgment on this sort of stuff."  
  
Kai sighed and let Shanna go and walked over to the counter to make herself another cup of coffee. "If you say so." Kai decided to change the subject. "At my office today there was a hired hit. Mr. Larson bought a gunman who was supposed to shot him so that he could sue us for having poor security. Unfortunately, Tala was hired to protect him by his wife. So Tala did and-"  
  
"He took the hit." Shanna finished. "How's April taking it?"  
  
"I dunno. She won't tell me."  
  
"Guess we have a lot in common." Shanna muttered under her breath.  
  
Kai sighed. "What's wrong Shanna? I can tell there's something not right. Please tell me Shanna."  
  
Shanna glared at Kai. "It's nothing really. So just stop pushing it Kai!"  
  
Kai watched Shanna closely. "Yes there is. Tell me. IS it the wedding? Do you want to call it off? Do you not like the church? The food? The time? Do you want to reschedule? Replan? Come on Shanna, I'm not a mind reader."  
  
Shanna glared even harder and shook her head. "It's all fine Kai!"  
  
"It doesn't sound fine."  
  
Shanna stomped to the door. "I'm going for a walk." And with that she was gone.  
  
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Lolli paced back and forth infront of the restaurant, wondering whether or not she should go in and tell Rei the news. The news that she had just learned a few hours ago. News that would change both of their lives forever. News that she was pregnant. {A/N: OMG!! *spazes out* First I make my favourite character get shot and now this??? What's next??? *looks at her plot outline* man this wasn't supposed to happen..}  
  
Lolli didn't know how Rei was going to take it. Nor how she was going to tell him in the first place. How did you tell someone that sort of thing? 'Hi Rei. By the way, we're going to be parents in nine months. What do you think?' Shanna shook her head, I don't think so. There was no way that would work.  
  
Lolli watched a young mother walk past with a carriage of twins. They were so cute, so innocent, so small and soon Lolli would have one of her own.  
  
Lolli gritted her teeth and walked in, ready to tell Rei, ready to face his reaction. But then Lolli froze on her way to the waitress as her eyes spotted Rei, at a table, but he wasn't along. Crystal, that stupid bitch, was at it with him and she was kissing Rei. And Rei was kissing her.  
  
Suddenly Rei pushed Crystal away and turned to look at the door and spotted Lolli. "LOLLI!"  
  
Lolli turned, tears blurring her vision and she ran out of the restaurant and far away, not wanting to face Rei. Not wanting to face the father of her soon-to-be-child.  
  
Oh god, how could he have done this to her?  
  
{A/N: Quick note before you all kill me. No Rei wasn't kissing Crystal. Lolli walked in at the wrong moment and it looked like he was kissing her but that was only because it was the first second of the kiss and yah. Anyways, he wasn't kissing her. Rei loves Lolli. Work with me here.} 


	5. Chapter Five

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Chapter Five: Rain Storms  
  
It started to rain at about nine o'clock, almost twenty minutes after Shanna had left for a walk. Kai stared out a window watching as the steady beat of the rain bounced off the ground. It was almost too dark to see out of the window. Almost, but not quite. However, Kai couldn't see any sign of Shanna. Kai had hoped she would have turned back as soon as the rain started but so far, there wasn't any sign of her and Kai was starting to get really worried. He didn't like the fact that the rain seemed to be getting harder and heavier, with no signs of stopping. Especially not with his girlfriend out there.  
  
Finally at nine-thirty Kai grabbed his raincoat as well as hers, putting his on and tucking hers underneath his arm and rushing out the door. His number one thought at the moment was to get to Shanna before she got pnemonia.  
  
Kai made it down the driveway to the garage and his motorcycle when he realized that he had no idea where Shanna was or even what direction she had left in. Kai cursed himself, starting up the motorcycle. Kai quickly tried to think of where Shanna would go in a situation like this. Then Kai got an idea and roared onto the street, collecting more speed as he went, swirving past the slower vechiles, not caring when they honked their horns at him.  
  
Kai flashed down the roads, not noticing anyone who gawked at him as he did so, but still looking for anyone who looked even remotely like Shanna, not wanting to miss her and risk her health anymore than she already was.  
  
Kai finally pulled in front of a house, Shanna's old house, the house he had met her at. Kai would have normally smiled at the memory but not this time, this time he had other things on his mind. Kai rushed through the woods, the rain that leaked in through the floor of branches had already soaked his hair, making it stick to his face. Kai didn't want to imagine what Shanna was like. Kai ran even faster, pushing the branches as he went, jumping over the logs and finally stopping when he came into an open clearing and could see a treehouse.  
  
Without evn taking a breath, Kai ran to the tree and climbed hurried up the ladder, hoping that Shanna was in there all the time. Hoping that he hadn't been wrong with his assumption.  
  
Kai stood on the floor of the treehouse, wiping the slick wet hair away from his eyes and sighed in relief as he spotted a figure sitting in the corner. Kai headed for her when he heard a small voice. "Go away."  
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
Tala walked steadily into his apartment, saying a goodbye to Bryan, who had picked him up from the hospital and drove him him since the docter had said that driving might be a strain after a while and so to avoid it for a good week or two.  
  
Tala noticed taht there was a message on his answering machine. Tala almost crossed his fingers as he pressed the play button, hoping that it was April finally. Tala couldn't help but sigh in disappointment when he heard Kai's voice on the answering machine instead of April. Right family, wrong sibling.  
  
"Hey this is Kai. April was there when you got taken to the hospital, she was pretty upset and she ran off. I think she may have gone to that apartment that you two were going to move into. When you get home, you should go and check up on her. She thought you might die or something Tala. She thought you might die or something before she'd have a chance to tell you that she doesn't hate yuo for what you did. Go to her Tala. Thanks, Kai."  
  
Tala stared openly at the answering machine and then dashed to the window, causing pain to overtake his thigh, but he didn't care. "BRYAN!"  
  
Bryan was standing next to his car, putting the key in the lock when he heard Tala and he looked up to Tala's window, putting his hand over his eyes to shield his eyes from the rain. He waved to Tala and waited for Tala to continue to yell out what he wanted.  
  
"I NEED YOU TO TAKE ME SOMEWHERE." Tala called out. When Bryan nodded, Tala closed the window and rushed outisde to Bryan's car, the pain in his thigh almost incrutating but Tala refused to stop. Bryan was waiting for Tala in the car, Tala climbed in the passenger side and Bryan started the engine. "Take me to the new apartment."  
  
Bryan looked at Tala weirdly but shrugged it off and backed up out of his parking spot, not one to question Tala, even if they had known each other for years and were best friends. They drove to their destination in silence. Tala too nervous to talk. What if Tala made it worse by showing up? Tala didn't know what he'd do then.  
  
They got to the apartment building and parked outside of it. Tala didn't move from the car for a few minutes and then he got out, taking a deep breath. He nodded to Bryan as a goodbye, gritted his teeth and went into the apartment building.  
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
Rei had lost track of Lolli about five minutes ago and now he walk walking aimlessl around the park, trying to find her agin. He wanted, no nodded, to apologize to Lolli about what shehad seen. He needed to explain to her that it hadn't been his idea to kiss Crystal. That he had hated it. He didn't know what he wanted to say, he just knew that he needed to say something. Anything.  
  
Rei closed his eyes, letting the cold rain drip down his face in almost a punishment for Rei. Rei welcomed it, knowing that he deserved all the punishment he could get. HEll, he woud be willing to go to Hell itself if it meant that Lolli would forgive him. He was ready to do anything for Lolli. Rei sighed. If only he had said that before this had happned, then maybe the girl he wanted to say it to would actually believe him.  
  
Rei sighed and continued to look around for Lolli and he finally foun dher, sittig on a park bench, her blonde hair darkened by the rain, stuck to her head and her arms were wrapped around herself tightly as she shivered in teh coldness of the night. Rei felt guilty, it was his fault she was so cold. Rei pulled off his coat and went over to Lolli, holding out it. "It's not that dry-looking but it'll keep you warm."  
  
Lolli looked up at Rei, her eyes filled with unfallen tears and she sniffled, then took the coat and put it on, snuggling into the warmness and then loked away, refuse to face Rei.  
  
Rei sighed. "Listen Lolli, it wasn't how it looked-"  
  
Lolli cut him off. "don't tell me 'cause I don't want to hear it." Lolli sighed. "You should take your coat back. You're going to freeze." Lolli made a move to take off the coat but Rei stopped her.  
  
"Take it. If you don't want me, then I'd prefer to have to deal with it in bed with a cold because at least then I'd have a better chance of sleeping it off." Rei said simply.  
  
Lolli sighed. "Do you have to make this hard for me? How can I be mad at you if you do this to me?"  
  
Rei smiled. "I was hoping that you won't." Rei took Lolli's hand. "I'm sorry. I don't know who that girl thought she was but I promise I didn't want that, not one little bit. Not with you around."  
  
Lolli blushed a little and Rei smiled. Lolli looked up at the rain in the sky and took Rei's hand and squeezed it. "I don't know how on earth I can ever manage to be mad at you."  
  
Rei sighed exaggerately in relief. "Thank god. I was worried my charm wasn't working."  
  
Lolli hit him on the shoulder. "Well one of your charms is working." Lolli took a deep breath. "Rei...I have to tell you something really important."  
  
Rei shivered. "Can we go home before we talk more, or our next week will definitely have to be spent in the bed with a kleenex instead of in the bed with you."  
  
Lolli rolled her eyes and nodded, grabbing Rei's hand. "Lets run." And so they did.  
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
Kai stopped going towards Shanna when he heard that voice. Kai took a deep breath. "I don't want to go. Are you alright? Are you cold? Wet? Tired?"  
  
Shanna looked at Kai, her green eyes cold and emotionless. Then she turned away and continued to stare into the darkness of the wods, giving Kai no response to his question.  
  
Kai sighed and stepped forward, his footsep sounding unbearably loud in the silence, the only other sound being the sound of the rain pouding on the roof. Shanna heard it and tense, but refused to turn her head towards the sound. Kai walked over to Shanna and knelt down next to her. "Shanna? Please tell me what's wrong. I can't help you if I don't know."  
  
Shanna shrugged. "You can't help me then. I don't care. I can deal with this sort of stuff by myself." Shanna looked at Kai. "Besides it's somethign stupid anyways."  
  
Kai stared into Shanna's eyes. "If you care about it, then it's not stupid. Tell me about it Shanna."  
  
Shanna sighed again and looked away. "It's nothing, really. I just need a little time alone to think about it. I've just been a little bit overwhelmed with the wedding, that's all."  
  
"Why? April and I are doing all of the-" Kai's eyes went wide. "Oh."  
  
"Oh, what?" Shanna sked, her face still completely blank.  
  
"You're mad at me because April's doing so much with your wedding. She's the one who found all the churches, helped pick out the flowers we were going to have, picked out the dresses for the bridesmaids, went to help you pick out your wedding gonwn." Kai wrapped his arms around Shanna. "I didn't realized that I was making you feel like this wasn't even your wedding. Gawd Shanna, you should have told me."  
  
Shanna turned to look at Kai. "Tell you? You think that I could have just told you? You were so happy, so content. Do you really think that I was going to ruin that?" Shanna pulled herself away from Kai. "I love you, this is our wedding. How could I tell you that I hated how you took over everything with your sister. It would have crushed you and then I would have felt so terrible. I'd rather deal with the guilt of not being able to tell you, than the guilt of making you feel bad."  
  
"Shanna-"  
  
Shanna cut him off. "Don't you dare deny it. I know you too well Kai HIwatari so don't even think about it." Shanna stood up and glared at him. "You want to make this April and your wedding, it can be April and your wedding."   
  
Kai jumped up and grabbed Shanna's hand. "I don't want it to be April and my wedding. I wnat it ot be our wedding, you and me. IF I could marry you right here I would, right now, with no one around. I would marry you without anyone here to see it and then I'd run away with you. I don't care."  
  
Shanna turned away. "How do I know you're not lying? How do I know that you won't still want a big wedding? How do I know that you want ever regret not having a big wedding? Huh?" Kai was almost sure that Shanna was crying at this point.  
  
"God damnit Shanna, listen to me." Kai turned Shanna to face him. "I would rather marry you in the fucking pouring down rain, right here, with only a few close friends, our immeadite family and that's it, then to go to a church and force you to have a big wedding. Do you hear me? I'd rather live another rainy day here with you than have a big wedding."  
  
Shanna buried her head in Kai's chest and cried. Kai held her close to him, buring his head in her hair, breathing in the smell of her. Kai found that he could barely keep the tears back himself.  
  
Shanna looked up at him. "I love you."  
  
Kai smiled and nodded. "I love you too."  
  
{A/N: Awwwwwwwwww! Yah, I realize that I didn't put much April/Tala in this chapter but I'll make up for it next chapter. I promise. Anyhow, what'cha think?} 


	6. Chapter Six

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Rated: Pg-13  
  
Chapter Six: The Silver Lining  
  
Rei and Lolli made it to their apartment in record time, both of them wringing their hair out at the front door (Rei having more of a task to do) and then they went into the apartment and Rei started a fire while Lolli made them a cup of tea so that they could warm up.  
  
Soon Rei and Lolli were sitting on a couch, Lolli snuggled into Rei's arms and sipping tea from her cup. "Remember when I said that I had to tell you something?" Lolli asked, breaking the silence that she had gotten so accustomed to in the last few minutes.  
  
"Sure. What was it?" Rei asked, holding Lolli even closer. "Is there something wrong?" Rei looked at Lolli concerned. "Did someone do something to you while you were out on a story?"  
  
Lolli shook her head and snuggled more into Rei's chest and closed her eyes, trying to work up the nerve to tell Rei what she had to. "Um, Rei, do you remember when we discussed what might happen if we were to have a child?"  
  
Rei raised an eyebrow, which Lolli could see out of the corner of her eye, obviously he was trying to figure out what Lolli was talking about. "Uh, yah, of course I do. Why? You don't want us to start trying for one? Do you?" Rei noticed how Lolli got disappointed at Rei's reaction. "Lolli, don't get me wrong, I would love to have a child with you, something to bond us even more than we already were. Do you really want to have a child, 'cause if you do, I'm willing to go upstairs and work for one right now." Rei swooped down and kissed Lolli on the nose and then the check and then the eyelid and then the mouth.   
  
Lolli giggled and pulled away. "I don't think we have to." Lolli looked up into Rei's eyes and stared into those hypnotizing globes of life. "I'm pregnant."  
  
Rei's eyes went wide and he looked down at Lolli, his eyes full of disbelief. Lolli was disappointed with the reaction and was about to take it back when Rei wrapped his arms around Lolli and held her close. "That's awesome Lolli. How long? Just a few weeks? A few months? How long have you known?"  
  
Lolli smiled and kissed Rei quickly. "I'm so glad that you're not mad at me about it."  
  
Rei looked at Lolli confused. "Why on earth would I be mad at you about it. It wouldn't be all your fault. I had something to do with it." Rei nuzzled Lolli's neck with his nose. "So, are you going to answer my questions?"  
  
"I've only known for less than a day now. I don't know how long I've been pregant, we'll have to go to a doctor and find out." Lolli took a deep breath. "Are you sure about this?"  
  
Rei smiled and nodded. "Of course I am. I want to go through with this. Just one question."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Can we go up to the bedroom anyways?" Rei asked. "It's been a long week and I think that we both deserve it. Especially you. I just wish that I could do more to help you out during the next nine months."  
  
"As long as you're right here next to me, encouraging me and staying with me during it all, then you will be doing everything that you can possibly do for me." Lolli smiled. "And lets go upstairs." Lolli purred and got up, pulling Rei up by the hand. "Come on up."  
  
Rei smiled and followed Lolli up the stairs, smiling the whole way.  
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
April sat in the middle of the empty apartment, surronded by boxes and a few tables. April was sitting on the floor, her legs crossed in an indian style as she stared blankly into the air, not regristering nothing at all. Someone knocked at the door but April didn't even blink, not paying any attention to the person that was at the door.   
  
The person knocked again, more insistently than before. April turned her head and looked at the door, not saying anything at all. She refused to get up or even let the person know that she was even there. She didn't want to have to deal with any of this at the moment. After all, she had enough problems to deal with already.   
  
There was about ten reports sitting on her desk right now that needed to be finished or sent off or something before midnight. Kai was probably wondering where those stupid pictures of the inside of that stupid church were. Why in the hell he didn't just go with Shanna to the church April would never know.   
  
And then on top of it all Tala, her boyfriend, the one she wanted to be with forever, was in the hospital, the person that she loved might not make it until tomorrow.   
  
April didn't know what to do about it anymore, she didn't know what to say to herself to make her feel any better. There really was nothing to say. April had already knew that Tala's job was dangerous, he had things happen to him before like this and April had never been as scared as she was right now.   
  
For you see, the main reason she was afraid right now was because Tala didn't know that she still cared about him. Tala had been shot thinking that April never wanted to talk to him again. Before April had always told him that she loved him before every mission, saw him to the office building that he was supposed to meet his new employer at. Before, April had never been mad at him.   
  
But now, now it was all different, now she had been mad at him and he had gone on a mission thinking that April didn't care about him. At least before, April knew that if he died, he would die knowing that April cared about him, but now...now she wasn't sure what Tala thought.   
  
The door knob rattled and there was a sound of a key being pushed into it, as it turned. April stood up, staring at the door, her brain trying to comprehend just who it could be. Suddenly the door opened and April felt her breath being released.  
  
Red hair greeted April's eyes and April felt her eyes go wide in response. April didn't even take the time to comprehend what had happened. All she knew was that someone Tala was standing in the doorway, and she ran over to Tala and wrapped her arms around him and buried her head in his chest, trying to keep herself from crying on him.   
  
Tala wrapped his arms around her too and then buried his head in her hair. "Hiya April. Miss me?" Tala joked.  
  
April looked up at Tala, tears filling her eyes as she tried to look into Tala's eyes. "Why are you here? Are you alright? Why did they let you out of the hospital?"  
  
Tala smiled down at April. "All I had was a bullet in the thigh, it didn't even go that far in, so it took less than ten minutes to get out. Anyways, I can walk just fine and they saw no reason in me having to take up a bed that someone else could use."  
  
April looked up at Tala, trying to see if he was lying to her or not. Finally April decided that she couldn't tell and decided to change the subject. April looked away from him and stared at the floor. "I'm sorry about the way I acted. I should have returned your calls. I wasn't even all that mad, I don't know why I didn't phone you back." April looked back up at Tala. "I'm so sorry."  
  
Tala smiled. "I'm the one that's sorry. I should have realized that it would hurt you if I told you not to move in with me." Tala took a deep breath. "Would you accept my offer to move in with me anyways?"   
  
April smiled. "I would love to move in with you." April kissed Tala on the cheek. "But promise me one thing."  
  
"What?" Tala asked as he looked down at April.  
  
"That you let me sleep in tomorrow."  
  
Tala smiled. "Deal."  
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
Kai sat in the treehouse, in his lap was Shanna who was currently trying to stop crying, not liking the weakness that she thought it was showing. Kai thought that the emotions that she was*- showing right now were beautiful, but hey, what did he know?  
  
Finally Shanna stopped crying and wiped all of the tears from her face before Kai could do otherwise. Then she looked down at her hands. "I'm sorry about that Kai, I didn't mean to do that."  
  
Kai shrugged. "It's alright Shanna, I don't mind having you cry on my shoulder." Kai made a motion of brushing off his shoulder. "It isn't that wet, see?"  
  
Shanna smiled and closed her eyes, subconsciously leaning into Kai. "Thanks for doing that for me." Shanna took a deep breath. "Can I ask you something before we go home?"  
  
Kai nodded.  
  
"Can we call this wedding off?" Shanna looked up quickly. "Not the complete wedding but the wedding that we have planned. I still want to marry you Kai, but I just don't like what we have planned already. I want to have a smaller wedding than we have already planned. In fact-" Shanna paused.  
  
Kai nodded to make Shanna go on. "Yes Shanna?"  
  
"Remember what you said earlier about wanting to marry me here with just a few family and friends?" Shanna didn't need an answer to go on. "Would you actually have a wedding like that with me?"  
  
Kai smiled and tightened his hold on Shanna momentarily and then got up and went over to the window and looked out across the forest, the rain stopping and dripping slowly doing the branches and falling to the ground. Kai smiled, the sight beautiful, just like the woman behind him.   
  
Kai turned back and smiled at Shanna. "Yes Shanna, I would love to have a wedding like that with you."  
  
Shanna smiled too. "Good." She went to Kai's arms and they rocked back and forth in the wind, comforting each other. "I love you."  
  
"I love you too."  
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
April stared into the darkness of Tala's room in the apartment that he was going to call his own for only a few more days. Soon they would be living together perminantly instead of just staying over at each other's place when they needed to feel each other's presence long into the night.  
  
This place felt weird for April, it always had, she had always hated it. Tala had said that him and a past girlfriend had lived here together before, that was probably what April hated about it. She didn't like the fact that he had shared something with someone else that he hadn't shared with her yet. It struck her right in the gut. April knew that it was just jealousy but she couldn't help it, it was one of her quirks.   
  
April sighed and got up, going as quietly as she could out of Tala's room, not wanting to wake up Tala just because she couldn't get to sleep. April walked to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of water, leaning against the counter as she drank it and tried to will sleep to come to her so that she could go back and crawl into bed.  
  
"Couldn't sleep." A voice asked, bringing her out of her thoughts.   
  
April looked up at Tala and smiled. "No, but it's nothing really. I just need to get used to this apartment again. I haven't been in here for so long."  
  
Tala smirked. "Well, that's not my fault." Tala took April's cup from her and set it down on the counter. "Come on, lets go back to bed. It's freezing out here."  
  
April smiled and followed him, noticing all of a sudden that it really was cold in this room.   
  
Tala led them to the bed and let April crawl in first and then followed her, pressing his body against hers and pressing a kiss to her neck. "Cold anymore?"  
  
April laughed softly. "How can I be cold with you around?" April closed her eyes and yawned. "Man, you're the best sleeping pill I've ever had. Mind if I keep you on a more night to night basis?"  
  
Tala smirked. "Sure, but you have to give up a lot of your work in order to do that." Tala nuzzled into April's neck. "Do you think you'll be able to do that? My sleepingness doesn't work on work-a-holics."  
  
April smiled. "I think I can do that." With that April closed her eyes and almost instantly fell asleep. 


	7. Chapter Seven

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Chapter Seven: Get here, get close, get out  
  
"I'm taking a vacation." April announced as she entered her office and noticed that her secretary was sitting at her desk, typing away at something.  
  
"Alright, be back before too long. Tell Tala to make sure that you two don't spend too much time in bed. Make sure you actually sleep and eat. Remember that there are people around when you're in the woods and have fun. I'll see you when you get back April." The secretary said simply, not even stopping her typing for a second or looking up.   
  
April looked at her secretary confused. "Aren't you even concerned that I'm taking a vacation when I haven't taken one for the entire time I worked here?" April sighed. "I have ten reports piled up and I'm taking a vacation. Aren't there any alarms going off in your head?"  
  
The secretary looked up at April and blinked and motioned to the pile of paper that was laying on her desk. "That's nine of them, I'm typing up the last one right now, April." She looked up at April and glared. "And if your brother ever comes down here to yell at me for over-working you again, I will quit on the spot. If you had told me that you were feeling over-worked than I would have taken over a couple of those reports."   
  
April looked at her friend. "What do you mean Kai came down here and yelled at you for over-working me."  
  
She shrugged. "He came through those doors about twenty minutes ago and told me that if I didn't finish these reports for you and make sure that you take on the minimum amount possible then I would be fired so fast that my head would spin. Then he stomped away. Of course what he doens't realize is that if he keeps that up, I'm going to quit. A girl can only take so much before she gets too hung up to do anything else."   
  
April blinked. "I see. I'm going to go have a talk with Kai about this."  
  
April's secretary shook her head. "No, don't. I'll be fine. It's not like it's a life or death situation and I would like to keep my job for a little bit longer. Anyways, I hope you have fun on your vacation. See you when you get back." She got up and basically almost pushed April out the door. "Now go, shoo. Don't come back for at least a week."  
  
April shook her head and walked out of the building, laughing as she did so. Then she jumped into her car and drove back to the apartment she owned for only a brief amount of time more, so that she could grab the rest of the boxes she needed and get them to the new apartment.  
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
Kai looked at the dress that Shanna was going to take back to the store today since they weren't having a fancy wedding anymore. Kai took a look over the wedding dress and sighed. It was such a pity to get rid of this but April had picked it out for Shanna and Shanna wanted to pick out her own. Kai respected her wishes and said nothing when Shanna put it in its bag and left the house to take it back. Kai didn't accompany her this time, thinking that if he did he would probably tell Shanna that she was making a big mistake and that she shouldn't take the dress back.  
  
Kai made himself a cup of coffee and sat down to rewrite the invitations, having already made up the notes to the people that they weren't inviting anymore that they were sorry but couldn't invite them anymore. Now he had to write the new invitations to those he was re-inviting, telling them about the slight change in the location of the wedding and that they shouldn't wear their very best or make sure that they can clean it easily.  
  
Kai looked at the card that he was going to be using for his invitations and sighed, it looked stupid. It looked completely impersonal. It said, you're invited to our wedding. Well, it could be anyone's wedding until you looked inside. Probably a million people send this card everyday. Kai growled and threw the lot of them in the garbage and then went over to his business computer. If there was one thing he had learnt from his sister, it was how to make something creative and personalized.  
  
Kai opened an invitation-maker thing on the computer and stared at it and shook his head. No good. There wasn't anywhere to personalize it, just where you could pick what unpersonalized things you could put on it. Then Kai tried the card-maker thing that April had installed and smiled. This would do just fine.  
  
Of course, along with the programs for these things, April had also put in pictures, three hundred or so of them, of him and Shanna, her and Tala, Lolli and Rei, or them in a group. It took Kai an hour but eventually he found a bunch of good ones and put them on fifteen different cards. Then he sat at the desk for a little while longer, trying to figure out what he should say on them.   
  
"What'cha doing Kai?" Shanna asked, wrapping her arms around Kai's neck and peeking over his shoulder at his work. "I thought you promised me that you weren't going to do anymore work until after we got back from our vacation. You know that I don't want to be ignored for this kind of stuff."  
  
Kai leaned back and captured Shanna's lips with his for a quick second and then pulled away and motioned to the screen. "I'm making wedding invitations for us. I didn't like the ones you bought, they looked unpersonalized." Kai brought up each of them for Shanna to look at and admire.  
  
Shanna smiled as she looked at one of them. It was a picture of Kai riding a horse, attached to Shanna's waist instead of the other way around. Kai had never been on a horse before that day and Shanna remembered how hard it had been to get him on one. But it had been worth it, Shanna decided, just to have April take this picture so that she could forever remember a 'weak' moment Kai had. "We should send this one to my parents."  
  
Kai nodded and clicked on it and then tapped on the keyboard's keys. "What do you think I should say on the front. I can't decide." Kai tapped his foot. "I'm just not good at thinking of captions for these kinds of things."  
  
Shanna squeezed Kai's shoulder. "Sure you are, you're good at everything."   
  
"Except horse-back riding, right?" Kai asked, motioning to the picture.   
  
"That's it!" Shanna exclaimed. "We could put something like, you can't be good at everything on the front and then inside we can put, which is why we're glad we're bad at horse-back riding. At least now we know our marriage has a chance."  
  
Kai laughed but typed it up anyways. "We're going to send that to your parents?" Kai shook his head and put in all the information about the wedding and then a little 'see you there' message at the bottom and printed it out, leaving their names blank so that they could sign it themselves.  
  
"See, we'll do something like that for every single one of them. It'll be fun, but of course we'll be up all night." Shanna said with a sigh.   
  
Kai grabbed her and pulled her into his lap and kissed her ferociously, causing her to giggle like crazy and then stopped and turned them so that they were facing the computer again. "Come on, only fourteen more to go and then we can go to bed."  
  
Shanna sighed. "Fourteen more?"  
  
Kai smirked. "Well, if you want, we can forget your parents again." Kai laughed when Shanna smacked him in the shoulder and then they got back to being serious {a/n: yah right} and started to finish the rest of the cards, smiling and laughing the whole time.  
  
^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^   
  
Lolli yawned and slipped out of her bed and looked at the clock, it was about three in the morning, not too bad for someone whose slept for a day and a half. She walked down to the kitchen and then heard rattling at the door and she wrapped her house coat more securely around her body and then approached the door and opened it an inch.  
  
"Hello. Lolli, isn't it? Hiya, I was wondering if-" Crystal's voice rang through the crack in the door.  
  
Lolli slammed the door shut and leaned against it. What in the hell was she doing here? Hadn't she already caused enough trouble lately? Lolli sure as the hell thought so. "Go away."   
  
"Aw come on Lolli, you don't mean that. You know that me and Rei belong together and you're just jealous. Well don't worry, I'll make sure he still visits you once in a while." Crystal's voice was beginning to sound more musical than humanly possible.  
  
"I do mean that. Get the hell away from me and Rei. Rei doesn't want you, don't you get it? He has a girlfriend, he has someone to come home to already. Just because you think that he's perfect for you doesn't mean that he thinks the same about you." Lolli shouted through the door. "So do us all a favor and get the hell out of here and away from us."  
  
There was a pounding on the door. "He does feel the same way I do. You just don't want to admit what you can't handle. He loves me just as much as I love him. So you let him come to me or I'll kill you."  
  
Lolli locked the door with the doorknob and the bolt and then walked away from the door, deciding that she needed sleep. Then she heard the doorknob turn with the familiar sound of someone unlocking it and suddenly the bolt was the only thing keeping Crystal out of her apartment.   
  
Lolli ran back to the door and tried to push Crystal out of the apartment. "Get out! You can't do this! Get the hell out!" Lolli felt tears run down her face. "Don't do this to Rei. Don't you see that you're ruining his life when you do this? He's going to be a proud father in eight months, and he doesn't need you to screw this up."  
  
"What do you mean he'll be a father?" Crystal growled and pushed against the door again, the bolt slowly giving away. "You ruined him, didn't you. You made him fuck you. You raped him. Now you're carrying his child. The child that he wanted me to carry. You bitch!" With another push the door almost gave way and Lolli back away quickly, running to the keypad for the alarm, pressing the alarm button to activate the help squad but nothing happened. Nothing at all. Lolli's eyes widened in horror.   
  
"Oh no, what did you do?" Lolli asked, screamed really, looking around, trying to find a way to get out of here without bringing Crystal to where Rei was.  
  
"I disconnected the phone. You don't think that I was going to let you use the cops to separate me and Rei, did you? Oh I know your type, act all innocent to get to the guy and then boom, you attack." Crystal said angrily and then pushed on the door again and Lolli could see the bolt giving away, only barely holding her back now.  
  
"GET OUT!" Lolli screamed and then rusehd at the door, slaming it in Crystal's face, tears now streaming down her face. "Get out, get out, get out!"  
  
"You can't keep me out." Crystal exclaimed, her voice sounding more distant than Lolli thought it should. "No you can't. Not a chance in the world you can keep me away from my Rei."  
  
Suddenly the window shattered, pieces of glass flying all over the place and Lolli screamed again, only aware of the body climbing through the newly cut window.  
  
{A/N: evil cliffie..isn't it? can't wait to see your reviews...see ya} 


	8. Chapter Eight

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Author Note: I have a idea!!!! *jumps up and down with glee* Happy happy happy happy *shakes her head* okay not that way sarah *glares at sarah in case she thinks of what I'm thinking* ..*shakes her head again*  
  
Chapter Eight: When Fallen Angels Plan Your Day  
  
April finally finished moving all of her stuff over at about three o'clock in the morning. Exhausted, she fell onto the couch that she had the movers carelessly throw into the living room. April closed her eyes and wondered when Tala would be showing up. He had said, the last time she had brought a load of boxes over, that he was going to his house to get something and that he would be back before she did. Well obviously he wasn't.  
  
There was a knock on the door and April jumped up, thinking that it was Tala. April grabbed the doorknob and unlocked it, flinging it open, only wondering for a second why Tala wouldn't just open the door by himself.   
  
The person that greeted April at the door was most definitely NOT Tala.  
  
"Hello April." Julian Larson, one of the company's newest clients said, greeting April.  
  
"Um, hello Julian. What are you doing here? It's three o'clock in the morning. Surely any business you might have can wait until the morning. And if it can't, just leave a message at the office." With that April moved to close the door.  
  
Julian stuck his foot in the door, preventing April from closing the door. "Oh, I think that this is too important to just leave a messsage at the office." Julian grabbed a gun out of his pocket and aimed it at April's temple.   
  
April stared at the gun, wide-eyed. "Um, Julian? I don't think that this is the right response to whatever we did to insult you. I'm sure if you contact my brother he will find a better way to compensate you." April swallowed. "After all, you're not the murdering type."  
  
Julian glared at April. "Oh? And how would you know? Now back up slowly and let me into your apartment. Any funny business and you can say goodbye to your life. Hear me?"   
  
April closed her eyes, trying to gain her composure. She re-opened them and backed up slowly, staring intently in the eyes of the craze lunatic who was currently holding a gun to her.  
  
"Good girl." Julian said appraisingly. "That's it." He motioned to the couch. "Go on, sit down."   
  
April did so, still watching Julian. "Why are you doing this? Why?" April was ashamed to find herself sobbing.   
  
Julian smiled, noticing April's reaction. "Why that's fairly simple April, for the money." Julian shook his head. "You see, if your boyfriend had just let me get shot, I would have had been able to sue Kai for poor security and it would have been simple. But now I have to resort to other things because Tala had to jump in the way and ruin it." Julian looked at April and smirked. "Which is why I'm going to use you for the ransom money instead of your grandfather which I had orginally planned. That way I get my money and get back at Tala all at the same time."  
  
April swallowed hard and then, in the distance, heard a car pulling into the parking lot. More than she had ever wished before, April hoped that it was Tala's car. Tala would know how to get her out of this, this was his job. He had to deal with this sort of thing all the time.  
  
Julian walked backwards to the door, the gun still pointed at April's head and roughly pulled a table in front of the door. "Your boyfriend tries to break in, after he gets past this, I'll already be ready in position to shoot you." Julian smirked. "Don't worry April, if your brother and boyfriend cooperate, you won't even get a scratch." Julian's smirk grew. "But if your brother and boyfriend don't, well then, you won't be around to worry about it."  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
"You can't keep me out." Crystal exclaimed, her voice sounding more distant than Lolli thought it should. "No you can't. Not a chance in the world you can keep me away from my Rei."  
  
Suddenly the window shattered, pieces of glass flying all over the place and Lolli screamed again, only aware of the body climbing through the newly cut window.  
  
Lolli backed away from the window in instinct. Then she realized what was going on and quickly jumped up. "Get out of my house!" Lolli exclaimed and hoped that someone from the security team had seen that and would get here fast. "You don't belong with Rei, I do. He's my boyfriend, not yours."  
  
Crystal grinned almost evilly. "Oh, that's where you're wrong Lolli. He is mine." Crystal lunged on top of Lolli and grabbed her hair. "This is what you get for ruining my Rei." Crystal punched Lolli in the stomach, making Lolli gasp for air. "This is what you get for carrying his baby." Crystal punched Lolli somewhere else and Lolli went dizzy. "And this is what you get for standing there all beautiful, acting like you're not doing something wrong." Crystal brought her fist up, aimed this time for her head. Lolli could do nothing more than try to shrink away.  
  
"Don't touch her." Lolli almost fainted in joy at the sound of Rei's voice and she opened her eyes to see Rei standing behind Crystal, his hand currently holding Crystal's, keeping her from hitting Lolli.  
  
"Rei." His name was merely a whisper on Lolli's lips as she looked up at him, barely believing that he could have such good timing.   
  
"Lolli, are you alright?" Rei asked, talking to her but not looking at her but instead into the eyes of Crystal, glaring at her with such emotion that Lolli was almost afraid.  
  
"I'm fine, Rei, really." Lolli said. "Just get her out of here, please?"  
  
Rei nodded and pulled Crystal up, off of Lolli. He started to drag her to the door when Crystal decided she would have none of this, even if it was Rei Kon, the guy she currently had the biggest crush in the world on. "Just a second." Crystal grabbed her hand back from Rei. "You're choosing her, that little witch over me?" Crystal grabbed Rei's hands and held them close to her, and continued in a pleading voice. "But I love you, I would die for you. I would do anything that you asked me to do."   
  
Rei looked at her, pondering and Lolli almost wanted to burst into tears. "Really? You would do anything I asked you to?" When Crystal nodded, Rei smiled and then grabbed his hands away. "THEN GET AWAY FROM ME!"  
  
Crystal looked at Rei, shocked, her eyes wide and her face filled with the same emotion that Lolli had felt just a few moments ago. "What do you mean by that Rei? Don't you love me?"  
  
Rei moved closer to Crystal and looked up at Crystal, glaring at her. "No."  
  
Crystal glared back and then turned her attention to Lolli. "You brainwashed him, didn't you. You made him think that he didn't love me anymore. You made him think that he fell in love with you, didn't you." Crystal smirked. "Well then, I will just remove you, than your brainwashing will have no effect on him and then he'll thank me for this." Crystal wasted no more time and pounced on Lolli, holding her by the throat.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~   
  
The phone rang at about four o'clock in the morning and Kai yawned, reached over and picked it up. "Hello?"  
  
"It's Bob Weasley, from the security team over in the apartment building three blocks away, umm, where your sister just moved into."  
  
"Yes, yes, yes. That's lovely, can't this wait until morning?"  
  
The male gulped. "Well sir, the thing is, your sister is being held at gunpoint at the moment and the gunman said he would only speak with you."  
  
That got Kai up out of bed. "Shit, I'll be right there." Kai hung up the phone and ran to his dresser and quickly slipped on the first suitable things to wear that he could find.  
  
"Where are you going?" Shanna asked, as she sleepily pushed herself up on her elbow. "It's four in the morning Kai, you can't be leaving me at this hour."  
  
Kai looked at Shanna as he pulled on the right leg of his pants. "I have to go." Kai hopped around, trying to put his leg in. "April's being held at gunpoint and I gotta go."  
  
Shanna sat upright in her bed and stared at Kai. "What do you mean April's being held at gunpoint. You're not going!"  
  
Kai looked over at Shanna. "What do you mean I'm not going. I need to go, I'm not going to wait around while April gets killed."  
  
Shanna got up and grabbed her own things to wear. "Of course you're not going to let April get killed." Shanna pulled on a shirt. "But you're also not going without me."  
  
Kai smirked and pressed a kiss to Shanna's forehead. "I should have known."  
  
Shanna smiled and grabbed a skirt and ran out of the room as she pulled it on. "Come on, the gunman isn't going to wait just because you want to have a romantic moment." Shanna stuck her head back in the doorway. "Later on the other hand-"  
  
Kai smiled and followed Shanna out the door. "Later." 


	9. Chapter Nine

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Chapter Nine: Cloud the way  
  
Rei grabbed Crystal by the hair, the sudden yank throwing her off balance and catching her so much by surprise that she loosened her grip. Rei took advantage of this and threw her off of Lolli, into a corner where she smashed into a table and the lamp fell on her head and she was rendered unconscience.  
  
"Oh god Rei." Lolli said, sobbing.   
  
Rei swooped down and gathered Lolli in his arms. "It's alright Lolli. Shh, don't cry my baby, don't cry. I'm right here, I won't let anything happen to you." Rei rocked Lolli back and forth. "Nothing at all Lolli."  
  
Lolli smiled and leaned into Rei's embrace. "I was so afraid Rei, I thought she was going to kill me or something. It was so scarey, especially when I thought that she might hurt you next. Rei? Why do people have to be like that? Why can't they just leave us alone?"  
  
"I don't know Lolli." Rei said softly. "I don't know."   
  
Lolli felt tears run down her face and buried her head deeper into Rei. "I don't like it when people do this to us Rei. It scares me so much."  
  
Rei nodded and comfortingly stroked Lolli's hair. "It's alright, we're all okay. She can't get us now."   
  
"That's what you think." Crystal's voice interupted their little moment and Rei felt a hollow metal tube being pressed against his head and Rei knew that it was a gun. "Get up Rei! I think it's time you and me got better acquainted."  
  
Rei looked quiltly at Lolli and then stood up slowly, not wanting to startle Crystal into firing. He blew Lolli a kiss and then walked towards the door, Crystal following him. Lolli wouldn't have this though.  
  
"Get back here with my boyfriend!" Lolli exclaimed, jumping up and moving to follow Crystal.  
  
Crystal pressed the gun against Rei's head with more authority. "Get back there Lolli, otherwise you won't have a boyfriend."  
  
Lolli swallowed and then smirked. "You wouldn't do that to Rei. After you, you wouldn't kill someone that you love so much. It would be torture for you."  
  
Crystal shrugged. "We can be together in the after life if that's the way you want it. I will get him Lolli, I'm not picky if it's in real life or in death." Crystal smiled. "The question is, are you?" Lolli sighed and dropped to the floor, unable to risk Rei being hurt. She just couldn't do it. Crystal smiled. "Now there's a good girl. Just sit there until we leave or I will kill him Lolli." Crystal pushed Rei out the door and closed it.  
  
Lolli waited a minute and then ran to the door and leaned against it, beating on it with her fists. Why? Why? Why? Why damnit! Lolli could feel cold tears fall down her face and this time she had no one to comfort her and tell her that it was all going to be right.  
  
And this time, she knew that it wouldn't be.  
  
¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ § ¤ §   
  
Tala could see the police cars before he even got to his apartment building and he felt his heart speed up about three times faster than usual. Tala parked his car far away and began to walk towards the building. Some of the police officers saw him and went to block his way.  
  
"I'm sorry sir but no one's allowed past this point." One of them said, effectively blocking him from moving forward.  
  
"What's going on officer?" Tala asked, staring them down.   
  
"I'm sorry but we're not allowed to tell you anything."   
  
"Does it have anything to do with the Hiwataris?" Tala asked quickly. "I'm April's boyfriend and close friend of theirs. So tell me, does it have anything to do with them." Tala opened his wallet to them, showing him not only a picture of him and April together but also the badge that indicated that he was a bodyguard.  
  
They parted and began to escort him to the apartment building. "April's being held at gunpoint right now, nothing we can do about it right now except sit here and listen to the guy's demands. So far, he wants a free ticket out of here and a couple million dollars. Kai says no way."  
  
Tala smirked. "He wants us to blows the guy's head off. Right?"  
  
The police officer nodded. "Definitely. He says that it's stupid to just sit here while his sister is in danger. Thankfully his girlfriend talked some sense into him."  
  
Tala nodded and then walked up to a police car where Kai was standing. "Kai."  
  
Kai turned and saw Tala and sighed in an emotion that Tala couldn't identify. He nodded to the officer, who left and then turned back to the car. "April's up there with that guy you took the gun shot for. Julian something or another. Don't remember much about him but the fact that I should have put him in jail for endangering the people in my building but didn't. Wish I had now. Anyways, he wants three million dollars and a get away car. Says he'll take April as far as he thinks he needs to and then he'll drop her off and she can phone to be picked up." Kai shook his head. "But there is no way in the seven fucking seas that I'm going to let him take her anywhere."  
  
Tala nodded, he understood completely. He wasn't going to let April leave either, not with someone that was crazy enough to hold a gun to her forehead. "So then what are we going to do?"  
  
Kai shrugged. "No idea. That's why I'm glad you're here. Maybe you can think of some way to get her out of there."   
  
Tala sighed and stretched, looking up at the apartment window that he knew was his own. "Does he have any children? A wife? Fiancée? Girlfriend? Boyfriend? I don't know."  
  
Kai shook his head. "Already checked, he lives alone, never married, no kids that we know of, though there may be a few bastards out there." Kai ran his hand through his hair. "There's nothing that we can use against this guy. He's got it all planned out. The only thing he has that he is even remotely close to is his dog and I think he'd be able to buy another one with three million dollars."  
  
Tala nodded. "Definitely." Tala looked around. "Where's Shanna?"  
  
Kai shrugged. "Said she was going to go get coffee."  
  
"And you believed her?" Tala asked, noticing that the two guards that Tala figured would have been posted at the front door were gone. "Damnit Kai, she went in there."  
  
Kai's eyes widened. "What do you mean she went in there?"  
  
Tala growled. "Are you that dense?"  
  
Kai took no heed of Tala and merely ran right up to the building and ran inside. Tala rolled his eyes and could do nothing but run after him, knowing that this could be the stupidest thing that he had ever done.  
  
Especially when it came to his girlfriend's safety.  
  
{A/N: Short chapter today...sorry but eh, I didn't want to ruin my beautiful cliff hangers by writing more. ^_^ see ya next chapter *Waves*} 


	10. Chapter Ten

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Chapter Ten: Take a chance  
  
Kai took a brief glance around the hallway and then rushed inside. Footsteps behind him told Kai that Tala had followed him into the building. Good, he could probably use the backup. Kai looked at the elevator. Nah, Shanna wouldn't be that stupid. Kai took another quick glance around and then opened the doors that led to the stairs.   
  
Kai looked in, cautiously and then entered the room and started to run up the first set of stairs, Tala grabbed him and dragged him back.  
  
"You are an idiot!" Tala hissed. "Do you realize that if Julian was on those stairs we wouldn't be able to see him until it's too late. Please tell me that you do have some smarts and at least have a gun with you." Kai said nothing and Tala rolled his eyes. "Great, go into a building with a crazed lunatic in it without a gun." Tala motioned back to the door. "We're gonna have to go and get some."  
  
Kai shook his head. "And let Shanna get in trouble in the mean time. Are you kidding me? Besides, the cops aren't really going to let us have a gun if we ask."   
  
Tala sighed. "You got a point there but there is no way I'm going up there without some sort of defense."   
  
Kai rolled his eyes at Tala. "Do we really have a choice. If we don't, we're most likely going to lose both of our girlfriends. And I don't think that either of us want that."  
  
Tala ran up the stairs, and then looked down at Kai from the top of the first set. "So are you coming or what?"  
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
Lolli leaned against the door for about two minutes before realizing that she was letting that bitch get away with her boyfriend. Lolli ran to the drawer where she knew Rei kept a gun in case of emergencies. It wasn't there.   
  
"Fuck." Lolli swore and then sighed. Crystal must have known about the gun and that was the gun she was currently using on Rei. "Damnit." Lolli slammed her hand on the counter. This wasn't fair. What was she supposed to do? She couldn't let Crystal leave with her boyfriend.  
  
Where would she go? Lolli's brain asked her. Probably back to her house, Lolli replied. And where is her house? Lolli's conscious prompted.   
  
Lolli grabbed her keys and ran down the stairs, getting into the parking lot just in time to see Crystal drive off with her boyfriend. Thankfully, neither of them saw her. Lolli grinned and ran to her car, only to swear once again. Crystal had slashed the tires. Damn, now what?  
  
Lolli remembered that April had just moved into an apartment building just a block away. She would have her car with her! And Lolli was sure that April would let her borrow it, no questions asked. With that thought in mind, Lolli rushed over to the apartment building.  
  
Only to find police officers keeping everyone away from it. FUCK! This just wasn't her day was it. They weren't letting anyone past, and Lolli couldn't see April in the crowds.   
  
Suddenly Lolli felt in her pockets for her wallet. She was a reporter and one of the many good things about being a reporter is that they would let you get a closer look at things, as long as it didn't put you in any immediate danger.   
  
"Officer?" Lolli asked as she approached the rope that seperate the public from the scene.   
  
"We're sorry lady but no one goes past here." The officer said, waving her off.  
  
"I'm a reporter and I was just wondering what was going on here." Lolli said quickly, showing him the proof that she carried around all the time. "Can you tell me or do I have to see someone else?"  
  
"You're Lolli Burkenstock?" {A/N: *winces at last name*} The officer asked, when Lolli nodded, he smiled. "My name's Bob Riley. You probably don't remember me but you cleared my wife's name a couple of years ago. Her name was Shelly Trowa." The officer nodded and lifted the rope, allowing Lolli access.   
  
"Right." Lolli tried to remember. "She was the one that was accused of robbing her father's personal items and I cleared her by producing a picture I accidently got of her at the beach that day." Lolli smiled. "How is she?"  
  
"Not in jail, thanks to you." The officer said. "That's how I met her."   
  
Lolli smiled. "Happy to be of service. Now what's going on here?"   
  
Bob frowned. "You know of the Hiwatari's, right?"   
  
Lolli nodded. "Yah, April is one of my best friends. That's one of the reasons I landed this job. Why? What happened to them?"  
  
"April's being held by some guy that wants money and a getaway car." Bob replied. "Kai's gone up there with his friend Tala, because Kai's girlfriend went in there and Kai didn't want anything to happen to her."   
  
"Oh my god." Lolli forgot about Rei for a second and was completely worried about April and then thought about Rei. Who should she help first? Crystal was crazy, she would probably do anything to keep Rei, but then again, so was this guy supposedly. Crystal probably wouldn't do anything to Rei until Rei did something, which should buy Lolli some time. "Bob? Do you have a gun I could borrow?"  
  
Bob looked at her confused. "I'm sorry Lolli but I can't let anyone in there."  
  
"You have to let me." Lolli insisted. "Those are my friends and I can't let them get hurt and knowing Kai, he went in there without anything to defend himself. In fact, I need three guns. Can you do that for me?"  
  
Bob looked at her and then nodded. "Sure, I have some extras in my car."   
  
Lolli smiled. "Thanks Bob. I really appreciate it."  
  
"Only for you Ms. Burkenstock." Bob smiled back. "Only for you."   
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
Shanna had no idea whatsoever on what she was doing. She only knew that she had to get to April, get her out of whatever she had gotten herself into and do it before Kai realized what she had done. There was no other way that Shanna could think of to get her friend out of this mess and there was no way in hell she was going to leave her in this.   
  
"Alright. What apartment did April tell me she moved into now?" Shanna muttered to herself. "Why do I always ignore this kind of information. Why? No wonder Kai gets mad at me."   
  
"What was that?" One of the police officers that Shanna had brought with her asked.   
  
"Nothing." Shanna scanned the door numbers. She knew that it was on the third floor and she knew that it was one of the couple's favourite numbers. Or was it a combination of their favourite numbers? Fuck, she didn't know. April's favourite number was 17 and every room here was 17-something. So what was Tala's favourite number. {A/N: I have no idea what Tala's favourite number actually is, so I'm making it up here!}  
  
"Which room is it?" The other police officer prompted.  
  
"I'm thinking." Shanna hissed. Forty something? or was that April's second favourite number. No, April's second favourite number was 34...and Tala's was 43! "That one!" Shanna said, pointing to the apartment.   
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"YES!" Shanna exclaimed, remembering just in time that she needed to keep her voice down, just in case that Julian guy heard her. "Alright, now what are we going to do?"  
  
"It's your call." The first officers said.  
  
Shanna growled. Trust these two officers to play i'm-stupid-you're-the-one-who-brought-us-here. Damnit! Why in the hell did they have to do this to her. "Alright then." Shanna leaned against the door. "Do you think that he'll have something behind the door?" The officers shrugged. Then Shanna smiled. "I have an idea."  
  
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §   
  
Rei sat in the car and sighed, waiting for something to happen that would rid him from this world and from Crystal. Rei then mentally hit himself, stop thinking like that. Lolli would be here with help any second now.   
  
They turned a corner and found that they were facing a bunch of cop cars. Rei smirked, this could work. 


	11. Chapter Eleven

Rather Live Another Rainy Day   
  
Chapter Eleven: Time to put the plan into action  
  
Lolli sighed as she looked between the elevator and the stairs. Knowing Kai and Tala, they would have taken the stairs. Why? Because they were idiots that's why. Lolli growled and rushed to the door for the stairs, pushed it open and took a quick look at how many stairs there were. And almost fainted.  
  
There had to be at least fifty god damned stairs before you reached the second stupid set of stairs. This could take forever and climbing stairs wasn't exactly Lolli's favourite past time.   
  
Lolli gritted her teeth and began running up the stairs. It didn't matter if she wanted to do this or not. She had to, she had no other choice. She had to make it to Kai and Tala before they did something stupid. After all, their safety just might hlep Lolli get Rei back.   
  
Kai and Tala would be able to help her get Rei back, Lolli repeated to herself. They would help her! They would! All she had to do was get to them first.  
  
With that in mind, Lolli continued to run up the stairs, cursing the way the stairs were set so that it was almost impossible to see if Kai and Tala were just on the next flight or not. What kind of stupid people designed this place anyways?  
  
Lolli quickly scanned her brain as she continued to run, what floor was April and Tala's new apartment on? That would surely be the place that they would go to first of all, because well, that just would be where everything would be.   
  
Lolli was sure that it was only on the third floor, which meant that she only had to go up six sets of stairs...two for each floor. Lolli sighed, she had already gone up two now, only four more to go and hopefully Tala and Kai didn't do something stupid before she got there. Wait a second. If Tala and Kai were only going to the third floor to stop Shanna then wouldn't they be done by now?   
  
Lolli almost completely stopped as she thought about that. Shit, Tala and Kai were going to do something stupid. Lolli sped up, she had to get there before they did.  
  
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤   
  
"Hello? Julian? This is Shanna, Kai's fiancée. I have the money here Julian. I just need you to come and get it." Shanna said, sighing as she knocked on the door, a briefcase held tightly in her hand, her mind racing with what could go wrong with this plan but she tried not to think about that kind of stuff. It wasn't going to work. She couldn't think like that. If she did, well then this plan really would go down in smoke.   
  
"I know you're lying. No one's left the premises since they came here. There's no way that you could have gotten the money." Julian called back through the door.   
  
"That's not true. I left to go get the money and now I have it. I need you to open the door so that you can take it. I also have the keys to your getaway car." Shanna jingled her own car keys. "Come on Julian, open the door and you can go. I promise."  
  
There was a slight struggle behind the door and then Shanna heard someone gasp in pain. "SHANNA! Get the hell out of here! He'll take you too! Don't stay here, run!" April yelled out before suddenly her voice went muffled and Shanna could tell that Julian had gotten control over the situation again.  
  
"I want you to back away from the door Shanna, I have a gun on your little friend and any sudden movement or anything and I won't hesitate to shoot her." Julian warned, doing something to April to cause her to whimper in pain. "Alright, I'm opening the door now Shanna, back away."  
  
Shanna backed away, against the wall, holding the gun that one of the police officers had given her up towards the door, her finger on the trigger, ready to pull it the second this guy showed his face. She held a little bit to the side, to where she figured his shoulder would be. She wanted to wound him, not kill him. After all, even if he did kidnap her friend, the courts would still have a hay-day with this one.  
  
The door opened and Shanna pulled the trigger and gasped as the bullet was fired.  
  
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤   
  
They were on the right floor, Kai and Tala. But they were on the other side of the floor from where Tala and April had gotten their apartment. They were slowly making their way to the apartment, slowly because they didn't want any surprises and end up being taking hostages themselves.   
  
"Do you think that that bastard has done anything to April?" Tala asked, as he and Kai checked around the corner before going around it.   
  
"Nah, then he wouldn't have any leverage against us, now would he?" Kai asked.  
  
Tala shrugged. "I dunno. If she was laying on the floor dying, I sure as hell would give him his money faster. Maybe he'll think like that too." Tala sighed and looked away. "I don't want to have to deal with this Kai. If anything happens to her...I don't know what I'd do."  
  
Kai nodded. "I know what you mean. If anything happens to her, I'm going to be just as upset. She's my sister too, you know that."   
  
Tala sighed. "Yah I know that, but she's my girlfriend." Tala stopped and leaned against the wall. "I'm going to ask her to marry me when we get out of this."   
  
Kai stopped dead in his tracks. "What? Tala, just because she's been held hostage doesn't mean that you should jump into that sort of thing."  
  
Tala shook his head. "I'm not going to be jumping into anything. I was going to ask her to marry me anyways. I already bought the ring, had the dinner planned out. I was going to ask you if you'd be there when I asked her. I was going to take all of us to that restaurant we always go to. You know, so not to raise any suspicions." Tala's face fell down and he hid his eyes from view. "But now..now I don't care whether or not it's a perfect moment. I just want to know that she'll be mine forever, that even if she does die, she'll die being mine."   
  
"Tala-"  
  
"Kai, I know that I sound a little possessive but that's just what I need." Tala looked up. "Alright, I'm done. Lets go get your girlfriend back."  
  
"Tala-"  
  
"Kai, lets talk about it later. Right now, we have girlfriend to save." Tala smirked. "Or did you forget?"  
  
Kai rolled his eyes. "Like I could ever forget my fiancée." Kai empathisized that word. "Now lets go and get her before she does something that will make me want to kill her." Kai started walking again. "After of course I kiss her for still being alive."  
  
Tala rolled his eyes. "You are one weird-" Tala was interupted by a gunshot and without even thinking about it, both Tala and Kai started running for the apartment.  
  
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤   
  
Lolli heard the shot and ran for the door for the third floor, she didn't even think about maybe endangering herself, all she could think about was her friends.   
  
Lolli raced for the other end of the apartment building, even in her foggy state of mind, she knew that was where April's apartment lay. She ran faster than she had ever ran before in her life and she saw Kai and Tala in front of her. Sure, now she found them.  
  
They were also running, probably for the same reason that Lolli was and Lolli caught up to them and passed them, turning around, running backwards. She handed each of them a gun and then turned back around, heading for the apartment, seeing Shanna in front of the door, looking shocked as hell and Lolli feared the worse  
  
Only to find out that the worst was not even close to it.  
  
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤   
  
"I'm sorry Miss but you can't go through this street. We have a hostage situation going on here and we can't have any traffic out here in case something happens." The officer tipped his hat to Crystal. "We can't have any civilians getting hurt."   
  
Crystal sighed. "Alright, let me turn around." She flashed a warning look at Rei and then turned the car into reverse.   
  
Rei took a quick look at the door that kept him from the rest of the world. Crystal hadn't even locked it, expecting Rei to be a good behavior. Rei smirked, too bad for her now.   
  
Rei looked over at Crystal while he snuck his hand towards where the door handle was. Rei waited until Crystal's eyes turned to the side mirror so that she could turn around. That's when Rei sprung his plan.  
  
Rei wung open the door, before Crystal could stop him by locking the door. Rei thanked the police officer they had just talked to. Thanks to him, Crystal had put the gun away, not wanting him to do something like arrest her before she could get Rei safely to her house.  
  
Rei had never put his seatbelt off, surprisingly the police officer hadn't told him to put it on. Maybe he hadn't noticed, or maybe he had noticed and just decided that there was no reason to make a fuss about it, he had enough to deal with as it was. Since he didn't have a seatbelt, he didn't have to worry about getting it off and without another thought, he jumped out of the slow moving vechile, rolling on his side for a few feet and then jumping up.  
  
Rei wasn't stupid, he realized that Crystal was going to come after him, but another thing that he was aware of was the fact that there were police just a few yards ahead. If he could get to them, or at least alert them that he was in trouble, Crystal would have a hard time doing anything.  
  
The police officer that had halted them spotted Rei trying to avoid the moving car that Crystal was currently driving. He pulled his gun out and fired, hitting Crystal's car, causing her to skid. Rei gritted his teeth and tried to make it to the safety of where she couldn't slid into him, unfortunately he didn't make it and she hit him and he went down.   
  
Thankfully her skid had finished and Rei didn't need to worry about going underneath the wheels. The police officer ran over with a few others. The ones he hadn't known arrested Crystal while the first one came over to Rei.  
  
"How did you know?" Rei asked weakly.  
  
"You're Rei Kon, Lolli Burkenstock's boyfriend. I knew that this person wasn't Lolli." The police officer grinned. "Plus I read the paper this morning?"  
  
"Huh?"   
  
"Her name's Crystal. She made the paper today. Lolli did a story on her." The officer shook his head. "She did an article on the person most obsessed with you."   
  
"Oh."  
  
The officer held out a hand to help Rei up. "I'm Bob Riley, Lolli helped me out a long time ago. Glad I could help her boyfriend out." Bob scratched his head. "Are you alright to walk?"  
  
Rei nodded. "Yah. Why?"  
  
Bob pointed to the apartment building. "Kai Hiwatari's sister is in there, April Hiwatari I believe it is now. Anyway, she's being held at gun point."   
  
"What?" Rei asked, jumping up. "You can't mean that." Rei winced and held his arm in pain. "Where's Lolli?"  
  
"Lolli's here." Bob confirmed. "Last time I saw her, she was going in that building, to help Kai and Tala. They went in there unarmed, she wanted to stop them and arm them."  
  
Rei shook his head. "Fuck. I need to go up there." Rei started towards the building.  
  
"Oh no you don't." Bob said, grabbing Rei by the shoulder.  
  
"Bob..please, I gotta help."  
  
"Not without this you don't." Bob said, handing Rei his gun. "Go and get her back here alive."  
  
Rei smiled, took the gun and started to head towards the building again.  
  
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤  
  
{A/N: I thought about ending it here but decided that I just HAD to tell you what happened with the gunshot that Shanna fired. ^_^ See I'm not that mean}  
  
When Tala ran towards the door, he had feared the worse. That Shanna had done something stupid and then Julian had shot April, that April was now lying on the floor, bleeding or even worse, dead.  
  
Well Tala was partly right, but not completely.  
  
When they got to the door, holding their guns, ready to kill Julian for being a bastard and taking their April hostage, for shooting her and in it's own losing the only leverage he had over them. When they got to the door, they were surprised. April was indeed lying on the floor, she was indeed bleeding, and as far as Tala could see she wasn't dead but the person holding the recently fired gun wasn't Julian, it was Shanna.  
  
Shanna had slid down on the floor, holding the gun that she had shot with, looking at it and crying. Two police officers had Julian in handcuffs, dragging him out. They nodded to Tala and Kai and then made their way to the elevator, to take him to jail. Tala was glad of that but April was on the ground...April was on the ground.  
  
Tala fell to the ground next to April and picked her head up and put it in his lap, stroking her head and cheek, trying to get her to wake up somehow. Tala's eyes fell to her shoulder, where there was a hole in her shirt, and blood continously bled out of it.  
  
Tala felt his heart stop as he felt for a pulse and found one, a very weak one. She was obviously losing a lot of blood.  
  
"I'm sorry." Shanna sobbed out, handing Kai the gun and refusing the hug that he offered to her. "I don't know what I was doing. I thought that Julian was going to answer the door, so I fired, thinking that it was Julian but it wasn't. It was April. I had already shot, it was too late. Oh god Tala, I'm so sorry."  
  
Tala shrugged off her apology and looked at Kai. "Get her out of here." Tala motioned to Shanna and looked back at April. "I'll stay here and wait for the paramedics."  
  
Kai nodded and picked up the crying Shanna and carried her to the elevator, waiting for it to come back up.  
  
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤  
  
By the time that Rei had gotten to the elevator, two police men and a guy in handcuffs had come down it. Rei glared at the guy, got into the elevator and pressed the button for the third floor. When the doors opened, he found himself looking at Lolli, Kai and Shanna.  
  
"Oh god Lolli." Rei said, enveloping her in a hug. "I was so worried." Rei looked over at Kai, noticing the uncried tears in his eyes and the tears covering Lolli and Shanna's face. "What happened? Is April alright? Did the bastard shoot her?"  
  
Shanna shook her head, sniffled and looked up at Rei, her green eyes filled with tears and hurt. "No, he didn't." She looked down. "I did."  
  
Rei said nothing more as the elevator travelled down. After all, what was there to say?  
  
{A/N: OMG! What in the hell was that??? OMG OMG OMG OMG! That was cool...lol alright what do you think? I can't believe that happened like that. Sarah!!! You have to tell me what you think this time. I need to know. PLEASE *looks at Sarah pityfully*...  
  
And everyone else...What do you think?? Was it bad...was it good??  
  
Next chapter...  
  
Will April wake up?  
  
Will Tala forgive Shanna?  
  
Will Kai and Shanna still get married?  
  
Will Tala be able to ask April to marry him?  
  
Will April say yes?  
  
What will happen between Rei and Lolli?  
  
All those answers and more...  
  
next chapter} 


	12. Chapter Twelve

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Chapter Twelve: It rains, it pours, and sometimes an umbrella won't help.  
  
Kai, Tala, Lolli and Rei all sat in the hospital waiting room. The doctors had taken April to an emergency room and they hadn't heard anything about it since then. That had been nearly an hour ago. Whatever was happening in there, wasn't good.  
  
"So, how did you get away from Crystal?" Lolli asked, turning to Rei, finally breaking the silence that had slipped over the four of them. "I thought she was going to take you to her house."  
  
Rei shrugged. "Well, we got stopped by the police officers in front of the apartment building. She had to hide her gun so it wasn't at her fingertips. I just jumped out of the car, we were going slow enough." Rei smirked. "We should send a thank-you letter to Bob Riley. He really saved my butt."  
  
Lolli's eyes widened. "Really? He was the one that gave me those guns and let me go into the building." Lolli looked at Kai. "Hey, do you have any influence at the police station."  
  
Kai's eyebrow shot up. "Do I not have any influence anywhere? I have money, money is the ultimate influence. Why?"  
  
"I think you should get this Bob guy a promotion." Lolli nodded. "He deserves it, if it wasn't for him, maybe you would be the one in the emergency room. He's the one that gave me the guns."  
  
Kai grunted. "I would rather be the one in the emergency room. April doesn't deserve that, she didn't do anything. It was my fault he had to resort to that. I'm the one who told his wife to hire a bodyguard and I'm also the one that recommended Tala." Kai looked down ashamed. "If I hadn't said that, then maybe April wouldn't have been taken prisoner, wouldn't have been shot and both me and Julian would be walking away a little happier today."  
  
Lolli rolled her eyes. "Don't you guys realize that not everything is your fault." Lolli sighed. "Where's Shanna? You think she'd be here. After all, April is her friend."  
  
"She ran off." Tala said simply. "I think that she thought I was going to blame her if something seriously wrong happened to April."   
  
Kai shook his head. "No, she thought I was going to blame her if something seriously wrong happened to April. April's my sister, I've been over-protective of her since I found out." Kai sighed. "I don't think she realizes that I love her a lot more than I love my sister." Kai looked up. "I mean, I love my sister, sure but I would do anything for Shanna, even if it meant giving up my sister."  
  
Tala growled. "You better not mean that."  
  
Kai shrugged. "I do and there's nothing you can do to change that."  
  
"Then why aren't you looking for her?" Lolli asked, hitting Kai on the back. "Get your ass out there and look for her. If April wakes up, we'll be here to make sure she doesn't feel lonely. We'll phone you for crying out loud. Just get your butt moving and find your girlfriend before she thinks that you really do care more about April than you care about her."   
  
Kai nodded, getting up and exited the hospital. When he got to his car he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Kai turned around and found that he was looking Tala straight in the eye. "Hey Kai, listen. When you find Shanna, tell her that I don't blame her for what happened to April. Tell her that no one does. She did what she thought was right."   
  
Kai nodded and got in his cat. "I'll tell her Tala." Kai said before closing the door. Tala backed off and watched Kai leave and then headed back inside the hospital.  
  
~*~ ~*~ ~*~  
  
April fought against the blackening blanket that had been tossed over her. However, she had no effect and all she could do was lay there and watch as her brain repeated the memory over and over and over again.  
  
It was always the exact same. She was being held at gunpoint by Julian. Then Shanna would come to the door, knock and tell Julian that she had his money. Then Julian would get April to open the door. April would see Shanna's gun, see the trigger being pulled, feel someting hit her shoulder and crash her into the ground. Then darkness would take over her and the last thing she would hear was a gunshot.   
  
April moaned, trying to push away this memory, trying to bring another one up. Any other one, she just didn't want to have to watch this anymore. She knew why she was unconscious, wasn't that enough? Obviously not because the memory started again.  
  
Gunpoint by Julian. Shanna at door. April opening door. April seeing Shanna's gun. Shanna pulling the trigger.   
  
April didn't watch the rest of the rerun and burst into tears. Why had Shanna done that? Surely she had seen that it was April standing at the door, not Julian. So why had she fired? Why?   
  
April heard someone whisper her name, someone from far away. It was Tala. April could recongize that voice everywhere. She wanted to find that voice but she couldn't. There was no where for her to run to in order to get to it. April panicked, what if she could never get back to Tala?   
  
April heard his voice again, telling her to wake up. But how was she going to do that. April moaned and twisted, trying to fight the blanket of unconsciousness once more.   
  
Then she opened her eyes.  
  
~*~ ~*~ ~*~  
  
Tala had finally been let into April's room. They told him something about being able to stabilize her wound and other stuff, but he wasn't really listening. He just wanted to be able to go and see her. To assure himself that she was still alive.  
  
Tala opened the door to the hospital room, stepping inside and gently closing the door behind him. He walked over to April's bed and leaned over, kissing her on the cheek. "April?"  
  
No response.  
  
"April, wake up please." Tala brushed her hair out of her face. "Come on April, wake up."  
  
April moaned a little bit and then turned her face away from Tala. Tala watched her curiously, wondering if she was trying to wake up for him. Tala smiled at that. Then April's head turned to face towards him and her eyes fluttered open. "Tala?"  
  
Tala sighed in relief, closed his eyes and let that voice wash over him. Then he leaned down and kissed her. "Hi April. Welcome back to our world." Tala pulled the chair over to the side of the bed. "How are you feeling?"  
  
April tried to move her shoulder and winced as she did so. "I'm doing alright. I could be better but hey, at least I'm here." April shifted to look around the room. "Where is everybody?"  
  
"In the waiting room."  
  
April lay back down. "I want to see Shanna Tala. Can you get her for me?"  
  
Tala shook his head. "No, she's not here right now. She didn't come to the hospital. She was afraid we were all going to blame her for what happened to you."  
  
"What did happen to me?" April asked quietly.  
  
Tala's eyebrows knotted. "Well, you were opening the door for Julian, so that he could get his money and Shanna fired, figuring that Julian would be the one at the door. She saw that it was you a fraction of a second too late. She couldn't stop it. Julian was arrested by the police she had brought with her and is now in jail, hopefully he stays there and that's about it."  
  
"So Shanna didn't think it was going to be me to answer the door." April quested.  
  
"No, she didn't think it was going to be you." Tala looked down at April worried. "Why?"  
  
"Well, all that I remember is Julian holding a gun to me, than Shanna coming to the door. She told him that she had the money, so Julian told me to the open the door. Next thing I knew, I was faced with another gun to my face and Shanna looked at me, and I swore I saw a look of recongition in her face and then the trigger was pulled and I was on the ground. I was blacking out and then I heard the sound of the gunshot." April looked up at Tala. "Did she fire twice?"  
  
Tala shook his head. "Nah, you just never hear the bullet that hits you, before it hits you that is."   
  
"Oh."  
  
Tala smiled. "I have something for you April." Tala stuck his hand in his pocket and fished around for the ring that he had bought. "But I have to ask you something first."  
  
April looked up at Tala, confusion written clearly in her eyes. "Surely it can wait until I get out of here."   
  
Tala shook his head. "I don't want it to wait." Tala took a deep breath. {A/N: Okay people...i suck at wedding proposals...work with me...I've never had to do one before lol..probably because i'm only 14..but eh, what do I know?} "April Hiwatari. I love you, you know that, right?"  
  
April nodded. "Yah, I know."  
  
"I want us to live together and I want us to be together for a long time." Tala continued.  
  
"So do I Tala, that's why we're moving in together." April replied.  
  
"I want to make sure that you know how much I want us to be together. So April-" Tala brought the ring box out of his pocket and opened it to reveal a white gold, diamond ring.  
  
April glasped her good hand over her mouth. "Oh god Tala, I don't know what to say."  
  
"Say that you'll marry me." Tala prompted.  
  
"Of course I will." April wrapped her arm, good one still, around Tala's neck and pulled him into a kiss. "I will marry you Tala. I will, I will, I will."  
  
~*~ ~*~ ~*~  
  
Kai sat in his car, wondering whether or not he should go and see if Shanna was there. She had been here last time but would she be here again? Kai wasn't sure but he wasn't about to leave without checking first. Sure, she might not be here but every instinct in Kai's body was telling him that Shanna was.  
  
Kai climbed out of his car, closing the door behind him. He stood there for a second, listening to the sound of nature. Then he walked into the forest, headed once again for the treehouse.  
  
Rei made it there easily, the parth familiar to him especially since he had been there recently. Kai gazed up the trunk of the tree and noticed something strange, the throw-down ladder was missing. Kai growled, that meant that he'd have to go up the hard way.  
  
It was definitely harder to climb it now, at eighteen then it had been at fifteen, the first time he had met Shanna and the first time he had followed her into the treehouse. Of course, those had been two separate events but still.  
  
Eventually Kai made it up, crawlling in through the window. Kai looked around and growled. He'd done all that for nothing. Shanna wasn't even here. Kai kicked a box in the corner and threw down the ladder. He was about to climb down when he heard it. The unmistakable sound of his girlfriend crying.  
  
It was unmistakable because of two things. One, he had heard it a million times before, most being while he was comforting her in the middle of the night from a nightmare or something. Two, because it was his girlfriend and no one in the world sounds the same as your girlfriend.  
  
Kai turned around and tried to figure out where the noise was coming from. He detrimined that it was coming from the roof. Kai climbed back out the window he had came in and continued to climb higher and he could lift himself over and onto the roof. There, Kai found his Shanna.  
  
She was sitting in the middle of the roof, her knees tucked up close to her body and her arms wrapped around them. Kai instantly felt an urge to comfort her and as it sunk in, before he knew it, he had gone up to her and wrapped his arms around her. "Shanna, it's alright."  
  
Shanna turned around and buried her head in Kai's chest. "Oh god Kai. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen. Really, I didn't." Shanna gripped Kai's shirt and pulled him closer to her. "Please don't hate me. Please." Shanna said something else but Kai couldn't make it out because of her sobs.  
  
Kai gathered her closer to him and stroked her hair. "We don't hate you. We know it was an accident." Kai stroked her cheek. "No one blames you. Tala said he didn't too. In fact, he told me to tell you that he doesn't."  
  
"Yes he does. Don't you see?" Shanna sobbed louder. "He hates me. He only told you that he doesn't because he doesn't want me to know. But I do know. I know exactly what's going on. I know you all blame me." Shanna pushed Kai away. "I shot your sister Kai. Don't you understand that? The kidnapper would have gotten away woundfree if there hadn't been someoen with me. What part of this aren't you getting? I was the one that shot your sister Kai. I shot Tala's girlfriend Kai. I SHOT APRIL!"  
  
With that Shanna jumped out of the tree house, scrambled down the tree and ran into the forest, leaving Kai to stare after her.  
  
~*~ ~*~ ~*~  
  
Tala continued to sit next to April's bed, even when April fell asleep. Kai had convinced the nurses to let him stay with April until he was ready to leave. Kai was good at convincing people.  
  
April suddenly sat straight up in bed and clutched Tala's arm. "I need you to get Shanna for me." April looked Tala right in the eye. "Please, I need her to talk to me."  
  
"What's wrong April?" Tala asked, stroking April's cheek as he looked into her terrified eyes.  
  
"I can't tell you." April whispered to Tala. "Just go and get Shanna for me. I need her Tala. I need her now."  
  
Tala nodded and went to the waiting room, seeing Kai sitting in the corner. Kai had been back for two hours now. He had done a search of the forest, he had told Tala, after Shanna had ran away but he was unable to find her.  
  
"What's wrong Tala?" Kai asked, looking up at Tala as he approached him. "Did something happen to April." Kai jumped up. "Did it?"  
  
Tala shook his head. "She wants to see Shanna." Tala sighed. "What am I supposed to say to her. I'm sorry April but Shanna doesn't want to see you right now. I mean, really. What am I going to tell her?"  
  
Kai shrugged. "I don't know. I wish that Shanan would just come in, so that she could see that we don't blame her for this."  
  
Tala sighed. "You know girls. They're emotional." Tala looked back at the hall that led to April's room. "Do you want to go and talk to her?"  
  
Kai nodded. "I should. I haven't yet. She's probably worried." With that Kai started towards April's room.  
  
"Hey Kai." Tala called after him.  
  
"Yah?" Kai asked, over his shoulder, not wanting to turn around.   
  
"Be nice to her."   
  
Kai smirked. "I'll try." Kai opened the door to April's room and saw that she was watching the door.   
  
April's face fell when she saw Kai but she quickly got over it and patted the chair that Tala usually sat in. "Come in and sit down." April sighed. "Shanna's not here is she?"  
  
Kai shook his head, not knowing what else to do. What else could he say? She was in the bathroom? That wouldn't work. Not with April. April knew better. Kai sat down, staring at his feet, finally he looked up. "No, she's not here April. I'm sorry."  
  
"Do you blame her for what happened to me?" April asked.  
  
"No."  
  
April rolled her eyes and laid back down. "You should, you know. You need to admit it. You're mad at her for shooting me. Just because you know that she didn't mean to, is no reason to just forgive her. You need to yell at her, kick something. Get your anger out." April turned to look at Kai. "Otherwise you never will."  
  
"What's that supposed to me?" Kai raised his eyebrow as he looked at her. "Hm?"  
  
April shrugged. "Can't tell you. You're not Shanna. But you need to yell. You need to blame her. Even if you know that she didn't mean to." April sighed. "It doesn't change the fact that she did."  
  
"So?"  
  
"If you don't get mad at her now, how will you ever voice your opinion later, when it gets too much to handle? You'll be married than and don't you think that it would ruin your marriage if you were always mad at her for this? I think it would." April closed her eyes. "I'm tired. Tell Tala he can come back in."  
  
Kai nodded and walked to the door and then paused, turning around. "Do you think that Shanna knows that I'm secretly mad at her?"   
  
April nodded. "Of course she does, that's why she's running."  
  
Kai nodded and let the room. Maybe girls were smarter than he thought they were.  
  
{A/N: Alright...i left a few questions unanswered but I answered most of them ^_^ I just didn't know how to answer them in content so...yah. What'cha think of this chapter??? Did it make any sense. I need to know that lol} 


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Chapter Thirteen: I belong here  
  
Three days later April was released from the hospital. Three days later, there was still no sign of Shanna. She hadn't phoned. She hadn't stopped by and as far as Kai knew, she hadn't even been back to the house to get anything.  
  
Three days later April and Tala were in their apartment, hiding from the press who wanted to know everything. Three days later Rei and April were doing the same. Three days later so was Kai, but he was doing it alone.  
  
Kai sat in his living room, the curtains all drawn, the lights all off, the only thing that emitted light in the room was the television, which he had down low so that they couldn't hear him. The knocks at the door had slowed about an hour ago, forty-five minutes ago they had stopped but Kai knew better than to trust that they had actually left. They were probably just waiting for him to make a noise or turn on a light so that they could start all over again.  
  
It was bad enough that they had to prod about the whole 'Julian' thing. After all, it was going to courts in a few weeks. The public had a right to know about that, so that Julian wouldn't get away with something like that again. But to have the reporters find out that his fianceé was missing, to find out that she left because she had shot April, well that was the worst.  
  
They had hounded April and Kai for details about Shanna until they realized they weren't going to get any. Then they hounded all five of them, resorting them to hiding in their own houses to stay away.  
  
Kai heard the sound of rain all of a sudden and smirked. No self-respecting reporter would stay by his house in the rain. The only covering was the upper balcony and Kai had put an alarm on that. Since it had yet to go off, they had yet to try it.   
  
Kai snuck to the window and opened the curtain a little, looking outside and seeing that the reporters were all heading to their cars, a little discouraged. Kai smirked, served them right for hounding someone for three days.   
  
Kai wondered if Shanna was safe from the rain. Where she was, what she was doing right now. Kai had been back to the treehouse many times in the past three days, always hoping that she'll be there for him to talk to. She never was though and Kai was more than worried about her.  
  
Kai kept going over in his head what could happen to her. She could be attacked by one of the various animals in those woods. She could be kidnapped by some raping idiot. She could be used and then just thrown away to die.   
  
Kai sighed and closed his eyes, really hard, refusing to let himself cry. He wasn't emotional before he had met Shanna so why did he have to be so emotional now? Hm?   
  
Kai opened his eyes and looked out of the window again, seeing someone heading for the house. Kai growled, didn't those reporters ever give up? It was pouring rain, they were going to get soaked. Kai was about to let the curtain go when the light from a passing car lit up the person's face.  
  
Shanna.  
  
Without even having to think about it Kai ran to the door, unlocked it and ran outside and to his sweet sweet Shanna. Kai took her in his arms, noticing hot wet she was, how much she was trembling. Kai lifted her up easily and carried her into the house, to the couch and he dropped her delicately on it.   
  
"I'll go get a towel." Kai said and ran to the bathroom, retrieving one and then going back to Shanna. He pulled her into his lap, not carrying that his pants were getting soaked and began to dry her hair off. "Where have you been?"  
  
"Around. I'm sure no one even noticed I was gone." Shanna whispered, as if her voice was unable to go any louder. Kai sighed and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead but said nothing to comfort her and continued to dry her hair. "I saw all of the reporters. Julian's in jail now?"  
  
"For the time being." Kai answered getting up with Shanna in his arms again, he lifted her to their room and then laid her on the bed and went to the drawers to find her some dry clothes. "His trial comes up in six weeks."  
  
"Oh. I see. Is April going to testify against him?" Shanna asked as she watched Kai go through her clothes.  
  
Kai shrugged. "I don't see why she would need to. There's nothing that his side can say to change the verdict. Everyone in the country knows what happened to her."   
  
"They could say that he never shot her."   
  
Kai turned to Shanna, handing her a nightgown. "Yes well kidnapping is just as bad as shooting someone. Especially when it's a nice rich someone whose brother has influence in every business in this town."  
  
Shanna sighed and took the nightgown. Kai turned away from her while she took off her clothes and put it on. She noticed that and sighed. "So you're mad at me?"  
  
Kai nodded. "Why shouldn't I be? You shot my sister. Then, when I forgave you for it, you ran off and didn't contact me for three days. Do you know how worried I was about you?" Kai turned around and faced the goddess that was Shanna.  
  
She looked so inhuman, so untouchable in that nightgown. The thing was too long for her and pooled behind her as she took a step towards Kai. Her hair was soaked and water dripped from it down her face, neck and then into the nightgown, as if teasing Kai. Which it probably was. Kai turned away again and walked out to the balcony.   
  
Kai was sure that Shanna was watching him heartbroken. Even though she had said that she wanted him to be mad at her, he doubted that she would expect him to be. SHanna followed Kai outside and stood, watching the rain.   
  
"That's good. You have all the right to be mad at me." Shanna said softly.  
  
"All the right." Kai repeated, looking over at his goddess. He wondered if he would be turned to stone if he tried to touch her. Kai sighed and decided not to risk it. Then he turned back out to stare at his back yard. "April wanted to talk to you when she woke up but you weren't there. She was disappointed to say the least. She thought that even though you shot her, you would still be there. To tell her what had really happened. She was afraid that you did it on purpose."   
  
"She was?"  
  
Kai nodded. "Yes. She was sure that she saw the flicker of recongition before she saw you pull the trigger. She wanted to ask you about it. Tala told her that it wasn't true but she was so sure it was." Kai looked at Shanna again. "Was it?"  
  
"Yes."   
  
"WHAT?" Kai blew up and quickly turned away from Shanna before he did something that he would later regret. "You shot my sister on purpose?"  
  
"I figured that if I shot April then Julian would have no power over any of us anymore. So I did it." Shanna felt tears coming to her eyes and she reached over blindly to grasp Kai's shoulder. "I knew she'd be alright. I knew it."  
  
Kai pulled his shoulder away from Shanna's grasp. "So you shot her on purpose and then ran off because you were afraid that we would find out just what you did? How could you do something like that?"  
  
"It was hard Kai. Trust me. I didn't want to shoot April. I never wanted to hurt anyone but I thought it was be the easiest way to safe her." Shanna sniffled and then turned away. "I'm so sorry."  
  
"Well you should be." Kai said and walked back to the house. He paused at the sliding door of the balcony. "You can sleep in here tonight. I'll go and sleep on the couch."  
  
Shanna felt her tears drop faster now. She had known he would hate her but she hadn't thought he would hate her that much.  
  
Kai walked down the stairs and flung himself on the couch, a million thoughts rushing through his mind but the loudest one was 'How could she do that?'  
  
~*~ ~*~ ~*~   
  
Rei sat down on the couch and watched as Lolli walked back and forth next to the phone. Rei sighed. "Why are you so nervous again?"   
  
Lolli turned to Rei and groaned. "I don't know." Lolli sat on the couch between his legs, her back to his chest and intertwined their fingers together. "I just have no idea how I'm going to tell my parents. Or anyone else at that matter."   
  
"You go, mom, I have something to tell you. Then she'll ask what and then you say, I'm pregnant." Rei suggested. "It may not be the most detailed and colorful way I've ever seen it done but it'll work."  
  
Lolli sighed and turned around in Rei's arms and looked at rei. "So how are you going to tell your parents?"  
  
"I'm not." Rei said simply. "It's not traditional for a son to tell his parents that he's gotten a girl pregnant until after the baby's born. And after he's decided to be a father to that baby. If not, then no one ever tells and the father is left unknown."   
  
"That's stupid." Lolli said and rolled her eyes. "Completely and totally stupid. Do you know how many babies then, must not know who their fathers are."  
  
Rei shrugged. "But it makes it easier for a man to request marriage with a woman who is pregnant. All he has to do is be the one to take the baby to his father." Rei smiled. "We never cared who the real father was, just who wanted to be the father and who was ready to be the father."  
  
Lolli sighed. "I guess but I still say it's stupid." Lolli closed her eyes and snuggled into Rei. They were about to fall asleep when the phone rang. Lolli jumped a mile high and then rushed to the phone and snatched it up. "Hello?"  
  
"Lolli? Is that you?" Lolli recongized the voice of her mother. "It's your mother dear."  
  
"Hi mom." Lolli said. "Yah, it's me. I was just phoning you because I have something really important that I want to tell you."  
  
"You've finally gotten that Rei boy to ask you to marry him and you're going to settle down and have a family." Lolli's mother guessed. "Why that's wonderful dear. When's the ceremony. I just have to be there."  
  
"Uh mom. That's not exactly what I was going to tell you." Lolli said quickly. "You were right about the thing where you said we were ready to have a family but not the marrying thing."  
  
Lolli's mother gasped. "You're pregnant. Oh my god. Lolli dear, you should have told me. If you want I can send the money for an abortion right away."  
  
Lolli sighed. "Mother, I don't want an abortion. Rei knows about it and he's happy with it. We're just not ready to get married yet. A baby is a big responsibility and I think it's better that we only have one big responsibility at a time to get used to."  
  
Lolli's mother sighed in relief. "Oh thank god. I was worried that he left you when you got pregnant. Put him on for me Lolli dear."  
  
Lolli passed the phone to Rei, who took it and began to talk to Lolli's mother. Lolli rolled her eyes and went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. She was going to need it now.   
  
Ten minutes later Lolli was sitting with a cup of coffee in front of her, sipping it and waiting for her boyfriend to get off of the phone. He hung up and then walk into the kitchen, grabbing his own cup of coffee off of the counter where Lolli had put it and sat down, sighing as he did so.  
  
They drank in silence for the next few minutes and then Rei looked up. "She wants me to phone her the second you go into labor. She's already told her personal pilot that she would be flying out here the second you start." Rei smiled and then looked down. "I told her that I'd also phone her when we figured out the date."  
  
"What date?" Lolli asked looking at her boyfriend's face which he had turned away from her and hid. "What date?"  
  
Rei looked up and smiled. "I know this isn't the most romantic setting but." Rei pulled a ring out of his pocket. "Would you marry me?"  
  
~*~ ~*~ ~*~  
  
Shanna crept down the stairs in the middle of the night. She had tossed and turned for hours on end and she was still awake. She couldn't sleep in that big of a bed. Not without someone sleeping next to her and the person she wanted to sleep next to her was downstairs, on the couch.  
  
Shanna tiptoed into the living room and then leaned against the wall and she saw who she was looking for. Kai laid on the couch, one leg falling off of the couch, the other leg pressed against the barrier of the couch. His eyes were closed, his breathing slow and it was obvious that he was asleep. His hair was thrown all around him and Shanna couldn't help but smile. Even in sleep he was a sex god to rival all.  
  
Shanna sighed, and he was mad at her. She knew that she had told him that he had all the right to be, but secretly she had hoped that he wouldn't be. But then again, she couldn't blame him, she had shot his sister. If their places had been reversed, well Shanna wouldn't even be here. She certainly wouldn't have given up her bed for someone like that.  
  
Shanna closed her eyes as she felt a tear flood start to flow and she tilted her head downwards. Maybe this proved how much Kai loved her. He loved her so much that he could forget about the fact that she had shot her sister and give her his bed. He loved her so much that he could sleep with her in the same house. Who knows, maybe he was sleeping better knowing that she was here. Shanna slid down to the floor as she thought about this and felt her tears break through the barrier she had created. Again.  
  
Suddenly there were arms around her, holding her close, showing her that it was alright. Shanna sobbed even more at that sensation. How could he care so much for her when she had done something so wrong? It just made no sense to her, nor did she think that it ever would.  
  
"Ssh Shanna." Kai's voice told her. "It's alright. I'm right here. I'm not going to leave you." Kai kissed the top of her forehead like he did so many other nights and he lifted her up into the safety of his arms and carried her back to the bed.   
  
He put her down gently and then turned to leave, telling her to cry it out and that he would be there if she needed him. But Shanna didn't want him to leave and she reached out and pulled him. "Please stay with me." She said between the tears.  
  
Kai nodded and slid into bed with her, covering them both up with the blanket. Shanna immediately cuddled close to him, the same way she had done so many times before and burried her head in his chest, crying. Kai stroked her hair but said nothing and Shanna realized that was because for once he didn't know what to do to comfort her.  
  
Shanna dried her eyes and looked up at him. "Don't leave me please." She whispered, and shifted her position so that she head was resting on her pillow and then she let herself fall asleep. It was so easy with her in Kai's arm. Why was it so easy?  
  
"Don't worry." Kai said finally. "I can't leave somewhere I feel I belong."  
  
{A/N: Alright..no Tala & April this chapter but that's alright...What'cha think? Thanks for you people who were nice enough to review me last chapter to assure me that it all made sense ^_^} 


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Chapter Fourteen: Three is better than one  
  
April sat at her kitchen table, sipping tea and looking at the phone. Staring at the phone really, wondering if it would ever ring and if Kai's voice would ever come over it.   
  
Shanna had been missing for three days, April knew that. With the rain storm last night though, April had hoped that Shanna would have headed home. Kai hated having her outside during a storm. April had never found out why but she was sure it was something to do with his parents.  
  
April held the tea cup with only her right hand, bringing it up to her mouth routinely but it just wasn't the same. She may have been excused from the hospital but her left arm was almost useless. It hurt too much to do a lot of stuff. The doctor said that it was all just phantom pain, that she was just making it up. But she wasn't, the pain was definitely still there.  
  
"I'm back." Tala said, coming in and shaking off the umbrella he had taken with him. "It's raining cats and dogs out there."  
  
April smiled softly. "I think you mean to say that it's raining cougars and wolves." She took another sip of her tea. "So, what did Rei want to tell you?"  
  
"Nothing that you need to be concerned about right now." Tala assured April. "Well there was one thing that he wanted me to tell you but Lolli told me to let her tell you so I'm not going to tell you. She's going to phone in a little white she said." Tala walked over to the kettle, put it on and then sat down at the table next to April, kissing her on the forehead as he did so. "How's the shoulder?"  
  
April sighed. "I don't know. I just wish I could talk to Shanna. I need to know what she was doing that night." April's voice turned to just a whisper. "I'm starting to have nightmares about it."  
  
Tala said nothing.  
  
"I can't stop seeing her standing there with the gun in her hand, pointed straight at me. I can't stop seeing the look in her eyes that proved to me that she knew it was me. I can't stop feeling the pain in my shoulder and the sensation of falling down. I can't stop hearing the gunshot after I fall on the ground. And lastly I can't stop seeing the look in her eyes afterwards, as it all went black." April stared into her tea. "I know you don't believe me when I say that she did it knowing it was me but it's true."  
  
"I believe you." Tala said simply and got up to go and make his coffee as the kettle was boiling.   
  
"No you don't." April sighed and went over to the phone and dialed Kai's number.   
  
After four rings someone answered it. April bet that Kai was checking to see who was phoning before he answered it. Stupid reporters were still hounding him probably.   
  
"Hello?" Kai's voice said finally. "This is Kai."  
  
"Hi Kai. It's April. Listen, has Shanna come back yet? I really need to talk to her and I know that you don't want me to but I really do need to." April said quickly.  
  
"She's not here." Kai said, a little quickly for April's liking and April rolled her eyes.  
  
"She's there Kai, I can tell. So either you go and get her on the phone or I'll come over there." April felt tears forming in her eyes. "Really Kai. I need to talk to her."   
  
"No you don't." Kai said sternly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and deal with some paper work I have."  
  
"Kai-" April didn't have a chance to say anything else because Kai hung up. "What a stupid son of a-" The phone rang and April snatched it up. "Hello?"  
  
"Hi April, it's Lolli. I just wanted to tell you that-"  
  
"Hey Lolli. Why don't you tell me in person. Meet me at Kai's house. Then you can tell Shanna too." April put the phone down and turned to Tala. "Come on, lets go to Kai's house."  
  
Tala looked at April. "Are you kidding? It would be murder to try and drive in that weather. It's coming down way too fast. We'd probably run into a ditch and die."  
  
April shrugged. "Fine if you won't drive, I will and then I'll probably end up in a ditch for sure."  
  
Tala groaned and snatched up his keys. "If I didn't think that you would actually do that-" He warned.  
  
"Yah well you love me." April smirked and kissed him quickly and then grabbed him and dragged him out the door, trying not to wince at the pain in her left arm.  
  
~*~ ~*~ ~*~  
  
Kai slammed the phone down and turned to Shanna, who was currently sitting on the couch, sipping a cup of coffee, her eyes drawn down so that she didn't have to look at Kai.   
  
Shanna hadn't been awake to hear Kai tell her that he still loved her and all of the other things he had whispered into the dark. Shanna, as far as Kai could tell, just thought that Kai had stayed in bed with her as a token of what they had had.   
  
Kai sighed and stared loosely at Shanna, not really looking at anything in particular. Shanna seemed to hate it when he did that now. Before she had been proud that she could get Kai to stare at her. She would make a pose, make his eyes go up to her face so that she could wink or something. Now, she shuddered in his gaze, afraid of what emotions he was feeling while he was looking at her.  
  
But how to tell her that he still loved her? He couldn't just say it out loud now. If he did that, well then she would ask him why, want to know why he was saying this. After all, she had shot his sister, on purpose. She wouldn't just let him be and think that everything was all right now. Oh no, not Shanna. She could never make it that simple for someone.  
  
"April's coming over." Kai said finally, unwilling to let this silence go on any longer. It was strange. If it was anyone but Shanna, Kai would have been happy to have the silence go on and on, lasting as long as they wanted it to. With Shanna however, Kai hated the silence and found himself breaking it most of them.  
  
"Oh." Shanna said simply, staring down at her cup, as if she had found the answers to all of her questions in that cup. Kai wished that he had a cup that could answer all of his questions right now.  
  
"She will probably want to talk to you about what happened that night. I talked to Tala the other day and Tala said that it's the only thing she ever wants to talk about at night. She is afraid of what she saw, Shanna." Kai sighed and leaned against the wall, in his official pose. "What are you going to tell her?"  
  
"The truth." Shanna said simply.  
  
Kai sighed again. "It's not going to be that easy Shanna, you can't just tell her that you meant to shoot her. Especially not with Tala right there. He'd kill you. It was bad enough that he thought it was an accident but to know that you meant to do that-" Kai looked away. "You just can't do that."  
  
"Why not?" Shanna asked. "Maybe it would be better that they just knew and that they were mad at me about it. It seems that they would be eventually anyway so why not just make it happen sooner?"  
  
Kai snapped and went down in front of Shanna and captured her face in his hands and brought her so that she could look straight at him. "Don't say that. We don't all hate you. We never have and most likely never will. I was just warning you to stay off of Tala's bad side. He's brutal when he's mad." Kai stared into Shanna's eyes, and felt a magnetic force that he hadn't felt before for so long. Not since he had first met her. "Shanna, I still-" Kai's eyes slid shut and his face moved forward, lips searching for Shanna's.  
  
"KAI! We're here! Let us in or I'll find my key!" April shouted from outside of the house, pounding on the door."   
  
Kai pulled away from Shanna with lightening speed, and without looking at her again, headed for the door. What was he doing??? She had shot his sister. She was right, he should hate her. But he couldn't help but still love her. Even if she had been an idiot. What was wrong with him???  
  
He opened the door and, using his body to block it from opening all the way looked at Tala and April who were staring at him. "What do you want? Shanna's not here."  
  
April growled. "Kai Hiwatari, I am your sister. I was shot. I know where the spare key is. If you don't let me in this house right now I will break one of your precious windows. Do you understand me?" April was huddled into Tala's side as the rain beat down on them. "If you don't let me down right now Kai, I will sue you and your girlfriend. Shanna for shooting me and you for making me catch pneumonia."  
  
Kai sighed and opened the door, letting April and Tala walk in. "She's in the living room." Kai said as he watched April strip off her outer layers and look in the kitchen. "Tala, why don't you and me go and make April some coffee."  
  
Tala looked at Kai curiously, realizing right away that something wasn't right. Tala looked Kai up and down, as if he was looking for something to give away what was wrong with this picture. Finally, he realized that he wasn't going to be able to find anything and he nodded, walking into the kitchen, with Kai at his heels. April on the other hand, headed straight for the living room.  
  
"What's going on Kai?" Tala hissed as he put the kettle on after lifting it to make sure that there was enough water in it for April and him to both get a cup of coffee. Tala turned and looked at Kai, sizing him up. "What is April going to find out that you don't want me to know?"  
  
Kai looked away from Tala's gaze. "Nothing, she's not going to find out anything that you won't find out too. I just don't want you to hear it when April does. It's going to be tough enough for her to comprehend it without having a boyfriend behind her ready to beat Shanna."  
  
Tala glared harder for a second and then rushed for the doorway, Kai only just catching him in time. Tala turned back to Kai, his gaze hard. "She shot April on purpose. Didn't she?" Tala went limp in Kai's arms. "I thought that April was just having a bad dream but she wasn't. She was remembering, wasn't she?" All of a sudden Tala was fighting Kai's arms again. "I'll kill her!"  
  
Kai shook his head and tried to hold Tala still. "No. Just let the girls talk. It won't kill her. Nothing's going to happen to either of them. There's a explanation for it all, trust me."  
  
Tala turned and looked straight at Kai. "No there's not."  
  
Suddenly there was a gunshot.  
  
{A/N: Okay. Evil Cliff hanger here...especially since I haven't updated this forever. But eh, it's not my fault..what'cha think of the chapter though?? Took me two weeks to come up with lol} 


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Rather live another Rainy Day  
  
Chappie Fifteen  
  
{A/N: This is going to be the second last chappie I think...I'm tired of dragging this story out}  
  
Rei and Lolli were driving along the highway, the windshield wipers working at such a fast pace that Rei couldn't even tell where they were and yet Rei still couldn't see through the window.  
  
Lolli was frightened and Rei knew it. If he wasn't already required to use all of his attention on the road he would have reached over and grabbed her hand to comfort her but as it was, he couldn't keep that great control of the car and he had both hands on the steering wheel.  
  
"Rei?" Lolli whispered.  
  
"Yah?" Rei asked, trying not to take his concentration away from the road. "What's wrong?"  
  
"I feel sick." Lolli said, holding her stomach. "It hurts Rei."  
  
Rei cast a quick worry look at Lolli to find that she did indeed look sick. Rei sighed and decided that he was going to kill April when they got there. Sending Lolli and him in this storm was not a good idea. But then again, Tala and April had done the same thing. Had they made it to Kai's house alright?   
  
"Rei. I'm going to get sick." Lolli said quickly.  
  
Rei didn't hestiate and quickly pulled over, not quite making it into the ditch, thankfully. He cut the engine. "Open the door and don't worry if you get some in the car."  
  
Lolli nodded and did so, suddenly throwing up her supper. Rei took off his seatbelt and crawled over, sitting behind her and rubbing her back, holding her hair away from her face so that she wouldn't have to worry about it.   
  
When Lolli was done she closed the door and leaned back, relaxing into Rei's arms. "Ugh, I think I won't think about food anymore. That was gross."  
  
"Morning sickness." Rei supplied simply. "It happened to my mother when she had me. She told me about it. She said that the mere thought of food had her running to the toliet." Rei smiled and kissed the top of Lolli's head. "It's alright. We'll just wait here for a little bit, until the rain lets up. There's no way it can stay this hard for that long."  
  
Lolli nodded and shifted her position so that she was snuggling against Rei's chest and she sighed contently. "You're going to make a great father you know that?"  
  
Rei smiled. "I'd like to think so."  
  
"You don't have to just think so." Lolli promised. "I'm a future mother, I know these things. You ARE going to be a great father." Lolli closed her eyes and ran random patterns down Rei's arm. "Do you think that April and them will be worried about us?"  
  
Rei shrugged. "Don't know. Probably will be after a while. They'll most likely phone the house and then get even more worried when they find out that we're not there."   
  
"Hope they don't think we crashed or something out here." Lolli shivered. "It's so cold Rei."  
  
Rei nodded and wrapped his arms around his fianceé. "I know Lolli. You'll be fine though."  
  
~*~ ~*~ ~*~  
  
It was all silent and then the sound of a gunshot echoed through the living room. Both April and Shanna froze at the sound, which made both of them realize that neither of them had done it.   
  
Kai and Tala were in the living room before April and Shanna could even take another breath. They took once look around, didn't see any guns and embranced their girlfriends. April buried her face into Tala's shoulder.   
  
"What happened?" Tala asked, staring at April's cowering body.  
  
April shrugged and looked up, staring out the window. "I don't know. There was a gunshot all of a sudden but neither of us made it and I don't know what happened-"   
  
Kai growled and looked out the window. "How in the hell?" Kai let go of Shanna and ran for the back door. "Tala, follow me." Kai turned to glare at Shanna and April. "You two find somewhere to hide. NOW!" Kai commanded when no one moved, then he was out the door and that was the end of it.  
  
April and Shanna looked at each other and shrugged. Shanna motioned for April to follow her and April did so, though a little hesitatedly. She wasn't all that trusting with Shanna at the moment.  
  
"Come on." Shanna whispered. "There's this cupboard in my closet that no one would ever find. Not even Kai. We'll be safe in there." Shanna raced up the stairs, April three steps behind.   
  
They both raced into Shanna's closet and Shanna showed her where the small hiding space was. Shanna went in first, April next and then they shut the door. Shanna showed April where there was a little peek hole that let them see into Shanna's bedroom.   
  
Then they heard footsteps heading for the room.  
  
"That's Kai!" April exclaimed in glee.  
  
Shanna shook her head. "No. That's not Kai. Kai's footsteps are louder when he's worried about something, like he has been since I got back here. I don't think that's Tala either."  
  
April shook her head and said firmly. "That's not."  
  
"Then who is it?"  
  
Shanna had her answer when Julian Larson stalked into the room. "Well, well, well. Looks like I found the room I was looking for." Julian smirked and looked around. April and Shanna moved away from the peek hole, as if they were afraid he would be able to see them through it, as they were seeing him.  
  
They heard Julian kick something and then a crash. Shanna winced at the sound, obviously she knew what he had just hit. April didn't, and was glad of that. It was probably something precious to Shanna.  
  
"Maybe they're under the bed." Julian picked up the bedcovers to peek inside and sighed as he found something. "Nothing under the bed. Maybe they're in the closet." April quickly checked to see if the door was closed.   
  
They could hear Julian stomp around in the closet, pausing once in a while, which made their hearts pound as they thought that maybe he had found the door to the secret hiding spot. However, he always kept moving which made their hearts pound even more.  
  
Then he left the closet and they both breathed easier. "Nothing in the closet. Maybe they're in the bathroom." Julian went to the bathroom to check.   
  
April turned to look at Shanna. "Do you think he'll leave us alone soon?"  
  
Shanna shrugged. 'Probably not. Where's Kai when you need him?"  
  
April sighed. "I don't know but I hope he shows up soon."  
  
~*~ ~*~ ~*~  
  
Kai did another quick round of the wood shed. Nothing was there, Tala were sure of it, but Kai continued to look anyways. It was as if he was worried about something. But what was it?  
  
Eventually Tala got tired of waiting for Kai to tell him and Tala growled. "What's up Kai? What did you see?"  
  
"Julian." Kai replied simply and then turned to look at the house. "You don't think that Shanna would turn on a light if I told her to go and hide, do you?"   
  
Tala shook his head. "Of course not. With the tone of voice you were using, she would have risked going around in the dark. Why?"  
  
Kai reached down under the table in the woodshed and pulled out two handguns, passing one to Tala. "Because our bedroom light's on and I didn't think that Shanna would turn it on either." Kai headed for the door, mumbling something about the fact that just because he was rich didn't give people the right to do this kind of thing to him.  
  
Tala hurried to catch with Kai while checking over the gun. "You don't think that Shanna and April are in danger, do you?"  
  
Kai shook his head. "Nah, Shanna's good at finding hiding places. No one will ever find her but I still don't want this guy in my house. If they're going to let him out of jail and in my house, well then they're going to have to deal with the paper work of having a dead body." Kai opened the door quickly and motioned for Tala to be quiet as they headed upstairs.   
  
Tala nodded and sighed. He was a bodyguard, this kind of stuff happened to him all the time. But to have the same thing he was hired to protect his clients from, happen to his girlfriend was nerve wrecking.   
  
Kai climbed up the stairs ahead of Tala by a single step. He looked at his room door and cursed upon finding it locked. "Damnit. Now how are we going to get in there without alerting Julian?" Kai hissed as he dropped his gun from it's stiff, ready-to-fire, position.   
  
"Don't you have a trap door or something. A way to get Shanna out of the room if something were to happen in there?" Tala looked at Kai, who shook his head. Tala rolled his eyes. "You are the biggest on protecting your girlfriend but you didn't think of that? Remind me to design your next house for you."   
  
Kai nodded. "Not the point. We need to get in there."  
  
"Balcony?" Tala suggested, motioning to another room. We could probably jump from one to another.   
  
"It would be hard to land though." Kai said wistfully. "The railing's high."   
  
"More to catch on to." Tala announced and walked into the guest bedroom. "I'll go first." Tala took off his coat and tucked the gun into his pocket. "Don't need to drop that in midair." Tala explained as he climbed onto the balcony and looked over. "It's only a six foot jump. I was always good in long jump."  
  
Kai rolled his eyes. "Yah but usually you had a longer take off area."   
  
Tala shrugged. "I can work with this."   
  
Kai sighed. "Alright jump."  
  
Tala nodded and started at the far side of the balcony and then ran straight for the edge and jumped. He almost didn't make it but grabbed onto the bottom of the railing. Tala turned and motioned for Kai to do the same.  
  
Kai took the same starting position as Tala had and got his running mark and jumped. However he found himself going down before he should have. 


	16. Chapter Sixteen

Rather Live Another Rainy Day  
  
Authoress: Kimpisces  
  
Authoress Note: I am **So** sorry to all of you readers. I haven't updated forever and I apologize deeply for it. Hopefully this chapter will make up for it and I hope that you all like it.  
  
Chapter Sixteen  
  
Shanna and April sat in the small, tiny hiding space in the closet of Shanna's room. It was big enough for both of them to fit in but there wasn't much room for either of them to move around but then again, they were both too afraid to move anyways. Jeremy was sitting on the bed, just sitting there, it seemed like he was waiting for something and both Shanna and April were terrified as they thought of what he could be possibly waiting for.  
  
Shanna and April couldn't even chance talking to each other, in case Jeremy heard them. It was torture, they had someone so close to them but yet, they still couldn't talk to them for support. It seemed completely and totally unfair to Shanna and she was sure that April felt the exact same way.   
  
Shanna looked over at April and noticed that April was pulling her collar away from her neck and fanning herself. Shanna's eyebrows came together in concern. What in the heck was going on here? What was wrong with April? Shanna wanted to ask but knew that it was unsafe to ask and so she just sat there, staring at April, worried.  
  
Shanna watched April for another few minutes and then it hit her. April was claustrophobic and it was starting to make her uncomfortable. Shit! Now what? They had to get April out of this stupid hiding spot and out into the open so that she would recover. But how in the heck could they do that with Jeremy right there?   
  
There was no possible way they could do anything like that. Or was there?  
  
Shanna looked over at April and decided that she would be alright for another minute and that was all that Shanna was going to need in order to keep her safe. With Jeremy's intelligence, he probably didn't know that April was even here so it would be easy for Shanna to get Jeremy to focus only on her instead of anyone else.   
  
Shanna opened the hiding place door and was incredibly happy that it didn't squeak. She didn't want April to be found. April saw that Shanna was leaving the hiding place and she instantly reacted by grabbing Shanna's shirt and made to pull her backwards. Shanna turned around and shook her head at April. She had to go. Didn't April see that?  
  
Shanna wandered out into the closet and then closed the hidden door, after making a motion to April to be quiet. Shanna then took a deep breath and looked around. She needed to make a noise that wouldn't be totally obvious she was faking it.  
  
Shanna saw her pile of high heels and smirked. This would be easier than she thought it would be.   
  
Shanna picked up the high heel and took a deep breath. This, even if it was for April's sake, was terrifying. She bet that April would know that only too well, since it had been April that had been held at gun point just a little while ago. Not even a week yet.   
  
And then I had gone and made her no longer at gun point by shooting her...Shanna thought to herself but then quickly pushed it out of her head. She couldn't think like that at a time like this. This was serious, she needed to get April the hell out of here and there was nothing else to it.  
  
Shanna threw the high heel against the wall. It made quite a loud noise and Shanna froze. Had that been too obvious? Shanna didn't have a chance to really know because at that moment Jeremy opened the door and looked in, grinning madly when he saw who he had found.  
  
"Well well well. Look what I have found in this little closet." Jeremy scooped down and pulled Shanna up by the hair and dragged her into the main room. "I think that Kai will be very happy to cooperate with my demands now."  
  
Shanna squeaked and struggled against Jeremy and then turned so that she could punch him in the stomach. Just because she wanted him to take her out of this room didn't mean that she was going to make this easy on him. If he wanted to use her as a hostage then he would have to earn this.   
  
Jeremy grunted when Shanna's elbow connected with his stomach but he didn't falter and he grabbed her hands and twisted them behind her back so that she couldn't do that again. Jeremy smirked and leaned down so that his mouth was right next to her ear. "Come on, I think I saw handcuffs downstairs." He twisted Shanna's arm extra hard, causing Shanna to yelp in pain.  
  
With that Jeremy dragged Shanna out the door and down the stairs. Literally dragging her down the stairs, causing her to bang down each and every stair and nearly cry in pain. When Kai found out how many bruises this guy had just given her, he was going to be dead.   
  
Upstairs Shanna hoped that April had gotten out of the hiding place and was now laying on the bed or something so that she could go and find Kai without fainting or something. Shanna took a deep breath and then looked at her capturer. All she could hope was that it had been worth it.  
  
¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥   
  
Tala had just made it. Kai knew that. There was no other way to say it. Tala had jumped and nearly fell but thankfully he had been able to grab onto the railing of the other balcony. Now, as long as Kai had about as good enough luck as Tala did, he would be able to make it. Kai took a deep breath, went to the edge of the balcony, took a run and jumped.  
  
And found himself plummeting to ground way sooner than he had wanted to. Kai didn't know what had happened but he did know that he was going to die right here and now. The way he was falling, he was going to break at least five bones and maybe even smack open his skull. This was not a good sign.  
  
But then all of a sudden he stopped in mid air. Kai looked up and realized that Tala had grabbed his hand and was holding him up in the air. Tala grunted and gritted his teeth as he looked down at Kai.  
  
"Kai?" Tala asked.  
  
"Yah?" Kai replied softly.  
  
"What in the hell did you eat for supper? You weigh a ton." Tala tried to shift their bodies upwards, towards the balcony, but found that it wouldn't work. "Damnit. I'm not going to be able to get us out of here."   
  
Kai sighed and looked up at where Tala was hanging from the railing. There had to be a way to get them up there. There was no way they could help the girls from this position and it was most likely that the girls were going to be in a lot of trouble. Though it was unlikely, what if Jeremy found Shanna's hiding spot? What if the girls ended up being kidnapped again for whatever sick game Jeremy was going to play with them this time? Kai moaned. Why in the hell did this have to happen?  
  
All of a sudden they heard a scream and struggles from inside of the room. Kai knew without having to look that it was Shanna that was screaming and struggling. That meant that Jeremy had found her. Kai and Tala shared a quick look. If Jeremy had found Shanna than he had most likely found April too. Tala groaned.  
  
"Climb up."  
  
"WHAT? Kai hissed. "You can't be serious. You could fall or something. It's not worth it."  
  
Tala looked down at Kai and nodded. "Yes it is. Our girlfriends are worth it. I can't stand the thought that Jeremy might be getting away with them. So just climb the fuck up me and do it quick."   
  
Kai looked at Tala again and then nodded, deciding that Tala was right. Kai lifted his hand up and grabbed Tala's shoulder and pulled himself up. Tala groaned in pain and Kai almost stopped. Almost was the key word. Kai continued to climb up Tala, ignoring Tala's sighs and grunts of pain.  
  
Kai had to ignore Tala otherwise neither of them would ever get up and this would be pointless. Kai made it to where he could reach the railing and so he did, lifting his hand up and grabbing for the railing. At that exact second though, he accidently kicked Tala and Tala's grip loosened and then suddenly, Kai had grabbed the railing and Tala had let go of it.  
  
Tala was now heading straight for the groun.  
  
Kai tried to reach for him, to do for him what Tala had just done. But unfortunately, Kai wasn't fast enough and gravity won, taking Tala all the way down to the ground and keeping him there.  
  
Kai watched in horror and then looked up and climbed up onto the balcony. He needed to get Tala an ambulance and now.  
  
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Rei and Lolli were currently sitting in their car, at the side of their road, about fifteen minutes from Kai's house. It was raining so hard that they couldn't see anything though and so they weren't about to go driving around. Rei had kept the engine on for some source of heat, though from Lolli's shivering, you could tell that it wasn't working.   
  
"Are you okay?" Rei asked Lolli finally, unable to ignore her constant shivering for any longer now.   
  
Lolli looked over at Rei with the sadest blue eyes that Rei had ever seen but yet she seemed to be damn ready to deny anything weak. "Yeah, I'm just fine. How long do you think this rain will last for?"  
  
"A little bit longer." Lolli shivered again and Rei sighed. "Are you sure that you're not cold? If you are I can give you my jacket. It's better than nothing and it's most likely going to keep you more warm than it's keeping me. I'm not cold at all anyways." Rei realized that he was blabbing and that he hadn't made any sense whatsoever. "What I mean is that, I'll be happy to give you my coat if you're cold. I can do without."  
  
Lolli looked at Rei and then shook her head. "No thanks, you need the jacket just as much as I do and I already have one anyways." Lolli looked out the window where all she could see was the rain rushing down the window. "It really is raining hard isn't it?"  
  
Rei nodded. "Yes it is." Rei took off his jacked and slipped it around Lolli. "There you go." When Lolli made to protest Rei shook his head. "Oh no you don't. You have a baby to worry about. I don't. I can survive being a little cold. It won't kill me."  
  
Lolli smiled and nodded. "Thank you."  
  
Rei acknowledged that and then looked down at the book he had dragged from the back of the car. It was about this boy going under sea where it was so cold.  
  
Why in the hell did he have to read something like this? He was going to be even more colder than he was just a few minutes ago. This wasn't fair at all. Why in the heck did they have to be out in a storm at a time like this. Why in the heck did April have to call them all over? It was pathetic and stupid. This was completely and totally against everything heh ad ever wanted. He needed to be at home where he could take care of the future mother of his child.  
  
Rei realized that he was shivering. This was just great. Lolli was also looking at him with a worried look on her face and Rei figured that he was probably scaring her with his shivering. Rei looked over and offered a weak smile. "Hey, it's alright. I'm okay. Just worry about yourself and the baby."  
  
Lolli shook her head and offered the jacket back to Rei. "Come on, you should take this back. I don't want you to be sick either. If you catch some bad illness and die it won't be good for me or the baby either. All that stress and I'll lose the baby. Come on Rei, put the jacket back on."  
  
Rei shook his head furiously. "I'm not going to put that jacket back on. Like I said, you need that jacket a lot more than I do and I will not die from catching something." Lolli fell silent and Rei mentally kicked himself. He hadn't meant to yell at her. It wasn't her fault that they were out here in the cold with all of this. It wasn't her fault that he was frusterated. "Hey, Lolli?"  
  
"Mhm."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"It's okay." Lolli said carefully and then looked back up at Rei. "Are you sure that you don't want the jacket back? It would be better if we were both a little bit warm than if one of us were warm and the other was freezing."  
  
Rei shook his head. "No it wouldn't be."  
  
Lolli sighed and then decided to offer another suggestion. "Why don't we cuddle then?" Without waiting for Rei's response Lolli crawled over and sat in Rei's lap and then pulled the two coats over like blankets. "There. Doesn't that feel warmer?" She snuggled into Rei's body and put her head under his chin and sighed contently. "Love you."  
  
"Love you too Lolli." Rei stared off into space for a long time.  
  
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Kai entered his and Shanna's room and noticed that April was laying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, breathing deeply and crying. Kai didn't know what had happened but it made him want to just kill Jeremy because obviously it was partly his fault. Kai went over to the bed and gathered April into his arms. "Ssh, I'm here now. What happened? Where's Shanna?"  
  
April was gasping for air as she cried and she buried her face in her brother's shirt. "Jeremy...we were...hiding...i...couldn't...breath...Shanna...OH KAI!" April cried even harder and Kai sighed, he didn't even kno what his sister was trying to tell him because she couldn't get it out without sobbing and not making sense.  
  
"Try that again April." Kai said in a voice that he hoped was comforting. "Come on, tell me what happened to you and Shanna? And where Shanna is." Kai rubbed her back comforting. "Come on, you can tell me. I won't let anything happen to you again."   
  
April nodded and whimpered and then wiped her eyes and looked up at Kai, fear evident in her eyes. Kai was really concerned now. What was she about to say that would cause her to be fearful? It didn't make any sense to Kai but obviously it did to April so he just sat back and waited for her to talk.   
  
April took a deep beath and then swallowed. "Jeremy came in here while me and Shanna were hiding. We hid in the closet in a secret compartment." April sniffled. "And I was getting claustrophobic and I couldn't breath and so Shanna made a distraction so that Jeremy would take her away and I could...I could-" April started crying again and collasped into Kai's arms.   
  
Kai held her but inside he was fuming. Shanna had given herself up for April? That didn't sound right. Shanna must still be feeling guilty about having to shoot April, Kai decided. Kai looked around and then sighed. He had to get out of here and find Shanna before somethign really bad happens.  
  
And Tala was laying outside..  
  
Kai growled as he realized that he had temporairly forgotten about Tala. Kai pushed April back up into a sitting position and looked her straight in the eye. "April, I need you to be strong for a moment. Can you do that for me? Please. This is important."  
  
April wiped her eyes from the second time since Kai had walked in the room and nodded. "Yeah. I can do that. I'm okay now Kai, really I am." She looked up at Kai and then smiled. "So what do you want me to do?"  
  
"I want you to phone the ambulance."   
  
"Why?" April asked, alarmed. "What happened?" It was then that she realized that Tala should be with Kai. "Oh my god. What happened to Tala? What happened to my Tala?"  
  
Kai sighed, he should have known that she would go into hysterical over this. Kai hit her gently in the shoulder. "Get a hold of yourself. This is neither the place nor the time to do this. You need to phone an ambulance and it doesn't matter but Tala is lying outside on the ground. He fell." j  
  
April's eyes flickered to the window and Kai knew that she wanted to go and run outside and see him. But she looked back at Kai and Kai realized that she was going to resist that urge just so that she could deal with whatever Kai asked her to. Kai smiled, that was his sister.   
  
April nodded. "Alright, I'll phone the ambulance. Anything else?"  
  
Kai sighed. "I hate to ask this of you, but I need you to somehow find a way to dig enough dirt up on this guy that he will never be allowed out of jail again."  
  
April smirked. "Alright, I can do that. I don't work for a newspaper for the fun of it." April winked. "Don't worry Kai, if you want dirt on this guy, I can get you dirt." April sighed and looked at the window again. "Will Tala be okay?"  
  
"Yes." Kai said, hoping that he was speaking the truth. "He just needs to have someone look at him and make sure that he heals alright."  
  
April wasn't convinced obviously but she didn't argue or complain. She was trying to be strong for Kai. April looked Kai in the eye and smiled. "Go get your girlfriend."  
  
Kai nodded. "I will." With that he left with nothing more than the thought of revenge in his mind.  
  
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Tala layed on the cold, wet ground. Water fell on him from above and he could feel that his entire body was becoming soaked with the rain. The only sound that he could hear was the rain drops that were landing on him and all around him as well as the distant, very distant, sound of something typing as fast as possible.  
  
Tala closed his eyes. What in the hell had he done to deserve this? He didn't know but he sure as hell hoped that this was enough to pay it off because he couldn't deal with anything any worse then this.  
  
The pain that was coursing through his body was incredibly. Immense pain if anyone had ever said so. It hurt so much and there was nothing that he could do about it. Nothing at all. Tala groaned and found that even making that noise hurt.  
  
Every muscle from his head to his toes was in pain, as if he had splattered himself across the ground and was now just one big, flat pancake. All he could say was that he was glad that it was grass and not concrete. It still hurt but it would have hurt hell of a lot more if it had been concrete.   
  
Tala let his mind swim and he found that he was instantly taken to a thought of April. He wondered if she was alright. Hopefully that stupid Jeremy didn't have her in his clutches and she was safe. Tala sighed, not worried about the pain, not even caring about the pain. He just hoped that his girlfriend was alright. He could live with the pain as long as he knew that she was okay, somewhere.   
  
Tala wondered if she was worried about him. Tala wondered if she was injured. Tala wondered if they had done something to her that he would never forgive them for. Tala wondered if they had taken her out of the house and away. Tala wondered why in the hell Jeremy had gotten out of that prison. Tala wondered why Jeremy had so much money and yet no one to share it with. Maybe Jeremy had changed his name or something to keep his family safe. That was a possibility.  
  
Tala didn't really care though. He just wanted April. His April.  
  
With that last thought, Tala plummeted back into the black darkness that was always there, always lurking. Always willing to take him in and comfort him.  
  
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Lolli was fast asleep in Rei's arms. Rei couldn't see her to tell this but he could guess by the fact that her breathing was slow and steady. Rei grinned. He loved listening to Lolli sleep and this was no exception. After all, it wasn't like anything bad was going to happen to them. Rei and Lolli were just stuck in a rain storm. Soon someone would remember that they were supposed to be there and yet weren't. Someone would phone their apartment, not get an answer and then come looking for them. Someone would find them and get them out of here.   
  
Rei nodded. And even if they didn't. It was alright. Once the rain stopped they could continue on. It was as simple as that.   
  
Rei felt Lolli start to shiver again and he sighed. They had had to turn off the engine awhile ago because it they didn't they wouldn't have a battery left and they would have to walk to Kai's house. Which, while it wasn't that far away, was a long way for Lolli and his to have to walk.   
  
The warmness that the engine that generated was slowly leaving the car and Rei sighed. They needed to find another source of heat. Rei looked around, trying to find something to put on.  
  
Then Rei remember his emergency pack in the trunk. There was a blanket in there. And Rei wouldn't get too wet just walking to the trunk and back again. And even if he did, there was a change of clothes in there too. Rei smirked. That would work perfectly.   
  
Rei shook Lolli softly. "Lolli. You have to get up. I have to go and get something from the trunk. I will be just a minute but I can't go unless you get off of me." Just like Rei had predicted rather than move away, Lolli merely snuggled closer. Rei rolled his eyes. "Get up Lolli."  
  
Lolli sighed and moved away. "You are mean! I was having a nice dream before you interupted it."   
  
Rei rolled his eyes and gave her a quick kiss. "Alright. I'll be right back and then you can go back to your nice dream." Rei opened the door, made sure no cars were coming past and then got out of the car. He walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk and praised god when he saw that his emergency supplies were all there. And to make it even better, he had even packed some food. Lolli might be hungry by now and that would definitely help a little bit.  
  
Rei picked the stuff up and held it close to his chest to protect it from the majority of the rain, even if it was in a plastic bag, and then he stepped back and closed the trunk and then walked to the front of the car. All of a sudden he heard a car coming from the direction that Kai's house was in.  
  
Rei smiled with pride. It would be just like Kai to show up when they were finally alright. The bastard never did know how to make a rescue before it was no longer needed. Rei shook his head and then leaned against the side of the car to wait for his friend.  
  
But the car that appeared in the distance wasn't Kai's. Nor was it Tala's. And yet Rei knew that he had seen that car before, where had he seen that car before? In fact, Rei was sure that he had been in that car recently. But where was it from? Whose was it.   
  
Rei stared at it long and hard and then decided that the car was going too fast to be able to see them if it was going to drive past. Rei figured that it would be better if Rei stood in the middle of the road, they would see them and slow down. Rei figured that they weren't going that fast.   
  
Rei went to stand in the middle of the road, the blankets forgotten and looked towards the car. As it came closer Rei recognized Shanna in the passanger seat. But who was in the driver's seat. It didn't look like Kai. The hair wasn't the right colour. Nor was it Tala. So who was it?   
  
Rei squinted and then he saw who it was. It was Jeremy. But why was Shanna with him? Wasn't he in jail?  
  
Rei had no longer to think about anything because then he realized that the headlights were shining right at him and they didn't show signs of slowing down or stopping. Rei swore and then looked over to the side and decided to jump for it.  
  
Before he could do anything though the car screeched and slid to the side and went crashing into the ditch, where a small scream was heard from.   
  
Rei stood there, in the middle of the road, with rain pouring down on him, stunned and not knowing what to do.  
  
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Jeremy sat in the living room, looking around and then noticed that Shanna was attempting to get out of her bonds yet again. Jeremy sighed and rolled his eyes. This was really getting stupid. Jeremy hadn't tied Shanna up so that she could get out, so what was the point of even trying?  
  
Jeremy watched Shanna for a few more minuetes, slightly impressed that she was intelligent enough to get out of her hand restraints quite quickly but then got stuck on her feet right away. Jeremy rolled his eyes again and then got up, wrestled Shanna's head back and then tied up her hands again, this time as securely as anyone could know how to.   
  
"You might as well not even try to get out of that. It won't work." Jeremy then removed his gun from her face and then pulled harder on the gag. "It's amusing that you didn't even try to yell for help. What's the matter? Your boyfriend upset with you because you shot his sister?" Jeremy seemed to have hit a nerve and he smirked. "That's it, isn't it. You got your boyfriend all pissy with you when you shot his sister. Well that's too bad for you and all the better for me."  
  
Shanna tried to say something through the gag but all Jeremy could make out was a bunch of mumbling. He grinned widely. He most definitely liked this girl better when she couldn't talk. He was sick and tired of her and her wise-assed ways.   
  
Jeremy picked up the phone, wanting to call his girlfriend and tell her about his new triumph. She would never believe it. Jeremy smiled. He would impress her with this one for sure. She thought that he was horrid at his job. Ha! He would prove that he was good. He would show that bitch. And then he would go back home and prove that he could be the man of the house again too.  
  
Jeremy heard someone talking into the phone and he slammed it down immediately. SHIT! Someone else was in the house and even worse. They were on the phone. They could be calling the police already and if he hadn't picked up the phone at that moment, he never would have known until it was too late. Thank god he had tried to phone his girlfriend. Thank god for his luck.  
  
Jeremy sighed, this meant that he had to evacuate the house sooner than he had wanted to. Oh well, it wouldn't be that bad. All he had to do is get Shanna into the get-away car without her boyfriend noticing that he was doing so. Not too difficult. Not to mention that her boyfriend was probably pissed off at her anyways.   
  
Jeremy grabbed Shanna by the hair and dragged her out of the room and the house. He listened to her whimpers of pain and protest and grinned. He liked those sounds, made him feel powerful in this situation. Not that he wouldn't ever be unpowerful in a situation. That just wouldn't be him. Jeremy smirked and then pushed Shanna into the back seat of the car and slammed the door and ran to the driver's side.  
  
Jeremy used his car's 'safety locks' to make sure that Shanna didn't leave the back of the vechile and then started driving away, speeding as he noticed some boy running out of the building. Probably Kai. What an ignorant asshole. He couldn't just give him the money, could he? Of course not. Well now he will lose his girlfriend in the same way he lost his sister just a few days ago. This time, however, he wouldn't get her back until Jeremy got his money.  
  
Jeremy was driving straight down the road at a speed of about 150 km/h. The next thing he knew he was seeing a boy standing in the middle of the road, waving his hands. Jeremy didn't know why but he tried to manoevre around him and in doing so, sent him and Shanna skidding directing into a ditch.  
  
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Kai saw the car leave the driveway and he growled. There was no way in hell he was going to let that STUPID son of a bitch away again. He would run after that car for pete's sake. In fact, that's what Kai did. The car got out of sight quite quickly but even he could hear what had happened and he just ran faster to get to the scene.  
  
Kai, well running, had heard the screeching of wheels. A screeching that is only made if a car is skidding down the road to avoid something. Kai didn't know what it was avoiding but he did know that there was going to be trouble.   
  
And Shanna was in that car.  
  
Kai ran as fast as he could until he found a car in the ditch. He knew right away that it was the car that his Shanna was in. Kai ran to it and quickly discovered that both Jeremy and Shanna were unconscious. Which meant that they couldn't help him get them out. Damn! That would make it harder for him.  
  
Not to mention that the car was due to explode at any moment. Damn this was horrible. Kai looked around and noticed a few rocks around. He was sure that Shanna would prefer a few scratches from glass to a death. So Kai picked up the rock and smashed the window in with it.   
  
Kai reached in and hauled Shanna slowly out of the car, always conscious of the time. He had to get her out, he just had to. Kai did it and pulled Shanna across the road to where he found Rei on the roadside. Kai didn't ask questions, he just let Rei take care of her and make her comfortable while he went to check the car and noticed that Lolli was in it, shivering.   
  
Then he looked around and noticed that he was standing in the pouring down rain. What in the hell was he doing. Then he heard the sounds of an ambulance and no longer cared.  
  
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Shanna woke up to a whiteness. She wondered where she was. The last thing that she could remember had been her in a car crash. Was she dead?  
  
No. Shanna could feel coldness and she didn't think you could get cold when you were dead. She saw the familiar sight of machines all around her and realized that she was in a hospital. She looked to her right and saw Kai sitting in a chair, asleep. She smiled and reached out and touched her boyfriend's cheek.  
  
He woke up instantly and looked at her. His shocked expression turned into a relaxed one. "Oh, you're awake."  
  
She nodded and then settled back down. "I can't believe we got into all this trouble when all we wanted was a wedding."  
  
Kai grinned. "Well now that we're out of this trouble, how about we do this wedding thing right?" Kai leaned down and kissed Shanna gently.  
  
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{A/N: I UPDATED!!! *dances around* YAY!! GO ME!!!!! Anyways, I hope y'all like it and it's close to 6000 words long so you can't whine that I didn't write you a long chapter. I think this is like the longest chapter I've ever writen.   
  
This is the last chappie but there'll be an epilogue soon.....I hope *sheepish grin*} 


	17. Epilogue

Epilogue  
  
"And that's the end of this evening news. I hope that you all have a good night and a good day tomorrow. We'll be back with you on monday." With that the news program ended and the credits went up.   
  
Kai Hiwatari picked up the remote control and turned off the television. Then he sighed and sat down on the couch and buried his face in his hands. Then he looked up and rubbed his eyes. "God, I hate this. It's stupid and the only use it has is to make me tired." Kai got up and looked out the window at the road.  
  
Shanna Hiwatari shook her head. "Would you stop it? It's not going to kill you to have them do some publicity on our honeymoon. I mean, come on, they must be curious about it." Shanna crossed the room and stood behind Kai and massaged his shoulders. "A CEO disappearing from the city to a place that no one knows about with his new wife. Not even his sister can tell anyone where they are because she's not around either." Shanna smirked. "I think that anyone that heard of it would think of it as romantic. And any reporter would think of it as their way to get big."  
  
Kai grumbled. "You're starting to sound like my sister. By the way, did she tell you where her and Tala were going?"  
  
Shanna shook her head. "I've already told you that she didn't tell me where she was going. It won't kill you to trust me you know. I have no idea where she went and besides, we didn't tell her where we were going either. It's only fair that she doesn't tell us. Besides, she probably just doesn't want you to worry about her. She probably has some private place in the middle of no where reserved and she's worried that you'll hear about some storm over there and take it upon yourself to check up on her." Shanna extended her height upon her tiptoes and kissed Kai on the shoulder. "You'd probably walk in right as they were getting into a compromising position and that won't be pretty."  
  
Kai visibly relaxed in his wife's hold and let her continue to rain kisses on his neck and shoulders. "It's not my fault that I worry about her. She was kidnapped by a criminal and hysterical just a few weeks ago. I mean, you can't blame me."  
  
Shanna rolled her eyes. "I think that we need to do something to make you forget about your sister." Shanna slipped her hands up Kai's shirt.  
  
Kai broke away and ran behind the couch. "We just finished doing that. I didn't bring you up here so that we could just have fun. We have work to do and I thought that it would be refreshing to do that work in a different environment."  
  
Shanna's eyebrows went up and she looked at Kai disbelieving. "No you didn't. There isn't a piece of work for you to do in this house and I know it."  
  
Kai grinned and jumped over the couch and tackled Shanna, bringing her carefully to the ground. "Sure there is. I have to work on getting you tired."  
  
Shanna laughed.  
  
*******  
  
April stared at the televison and sighed as she watched the screen change and show a picture of Jeremy heading into the high security jail in the state. His head was bent at all times except for once when he looked up at the cameras and mouthed as clearly as day 'I'm going to get you'. April was spooked as hell from that and she shivered. Everyone was probably assuming that she was with Tala somewhere.   
  
Unfortunately she wasn't. She was in the middle of no where waiting for Tala to show up. She had booked this place about a week or two ago and had arrived here about six days ago. She had since then been waiting for her boyfriend to show up. He had gone to be a witness at the Jeremy trial. April hadn't wanted to go and no one had forced her to. If she never had to look personally into Jeremy's eyes again it would be too soon. She had enough of that man for the rest of her life and into the after life as well.  
  
April sighed and looked at the clock. It was six o'clock. About time to make dinner again. Once again she only had to worry about making enough for one person.   
  
It was bad enough that she had to be all alone in this stupid cabin but to not even have her boyfriend call her, it was torture. She wished that she knew where Kai was spending his honeymoon so that she could phone him for some comfort.   
  
April shook his head. No, that wouldn't be right. They were on their honeymoon and they didn't need, nor want, the little sister phoning them because of a nightmare. It wasn't worth it. Not at all. Besides, she wouldn't like them to do that to her so she might as well forget about it.  
  
Maybe she should phone Lolli. That might be a good idea. Lolli wasn't on a honeymoon and Lolli had told April, before April had left, that she could phone Lolli at any time. And right now she really needed someone to talk to. She was frightened and knowing that there was no one around for hours wasn't helpful at all.  
  
April walked over to the phone and picked up the reciever. She dailed Lolli's phone number and listened to the ringing. After six rings the automatic voice took over and April slammed the phone down. Damnit. She didn't want to leave a message. She wanted to talk to a human being, someone that she could trust to comfort her.  
  
All of a sudden April heard a door open in the distance and her eyes widened. Jeremy was here for her. He had escaped somehow and he was coming for her. April raced to the kitchen and pulled out the gun that she had hidden there and quickly held it up. Someone entered the kitchen from behind her and April whipped around and aimed.  
  
"April?" Tala asked shakily.   
  
April saw that it was just Tala and she took a deep, shaky breath. What had she been thinking? Of course it would Tala. How could it be anyone else? No one knew where they were. No one knew. April put the gun on the counter and then collasped into a heap of crying tears. Tala rushed over to her and gathered her in his arms, whispering comforting, sweet nothings into her ears.   
  
Tala picked April up and carried her into the living room and held her close to him. He stroked her hair and comforted her until she fell asleep. Then he reached over for the phone and picked it up. "Um, Dr. Nikly, I think we are going to need your services." There was a pause and Tala sighed. "My girlfriend seems to think that she needs to protect herself still." Another pause. "Yes I know that it is typical for someone to have those reflexes after something like that happened to her. Yes, yes I know. But I still think that she is going to need your help to get over this." Once again, there was a pause. "Alright, I'll talk to you again in a month."  
  
Tala sighed and looked down at April, his April. He held her closer and rocked her back and forth again.   
  
*******  
  
Lolli sat in her bed, watching as the future father of her child slept. He looked so peaceful and so beautiful. It was just lovely how he looked. Really it was. Lolli sighed. This wasn't going to be easy for either of them after what they had gone through. Jeremy's crash and been a big blow on both of them. Rei had thought that he had been the cause of someone's death and he had been hysterical.  
  
Thankfully he hadn't been and now Jeremy was being bars for good. April had been a little shaky about the whole thing but Lolli was sure that she would be okay by the next week or so. Being off by herself where no one could reach her is a good thing and it will do her a lot of good. Plus it will be good for recooperation.  
  
Lolli sighed and laid down, yawning. It was midnight, she should really be going to sleep now. There wasn't any reason for her to stay awake and worry tonight. Lolli grinned and snuggled in closer to Rei and was amused when he draped an arm around her and moved to get closer to her as well.  
  
"Love you." Lolli whispered. Rei smiled and nodded and Lolli knew that he was saying the same.  
  
********FIVE YEARS LATER*******  
  
April picked up her god daughter and giggled as the girl squirmed and kicked. "Come on Jacqueline. Be a good girl and don't struggle. You have to go and get washed up for dinner. You know your mommy and daddy don't like dirty hands. Besides, don't you know that if you touch your food with dirty hands and eat it, than you''ll make it grow in your belly."  
  
Jacqueline's eyes widened and she jumped down out of April's grip and ran for the nearest bathroom. Lolli chuckled and shook her head. "You shouldn't fill her head with those stories. How are we going to explain it to her grandparents or her friends?"  
  
April shrugged. "How am I supposed to know? There's a reason I'm not a mother." April stepped over to the counter and began to chop the carrots. "Besides, at least I got her to go and wash her hands and the story can' t be that horrible." April popped a carrot piece into her mouth. "I heard it when I was her age."  
  
"That's why I worry." Lolli kidded. "I'm just teasing. So where's the boys?"  
  
Shanna came in the kitchen, yawning as she carried her three month old son, Kevyn, in her arms. "Tala is helping Kai with his new secutity system and I think that Rei is signing autographs somewhere." Shanna shrugged. "Don't ask me. I wouldn't be able to tell you. All I know is that Kai and Tala aren't going to be home for dinner."  
  
Lolli sighed. "Well Rei better be, I told Jacqueline that her daddy would be home to help her make the dessert. And he promised me that he would be home to put her to bed tonight." Lolli rolled her eyes. "Poor Jackie hasn't had her dad tell her a bedtime story for two weeks. She's been devesated at knowing that she has to go through one of mommy's stories."  
  
April chuckled. "I don't blame her." Lolli hit April with a towel. "What? I don't. Rei's much better at imitating the grizzly bears in goldilocks and the three bears." April winked and laughed. "Anyways. Lets hope that he does get home for you. Just remember that this is my house and that you live next door."  
  
Lolli laughed. "Aw and here I was thinking that you would let me and Rei go and sleep in your bed."  
  
April shook her head. "You're not going in my bed, for sleeping or otherwise."  
  
Shanna and Lolli just laughed. April rolled her eyes. "Alright are we ready to eat?" Shanna said finally.  
  
At that moment Rei came rushing in the door. "Sorry I'm late. Traffic jam all along main street kept me from going anywhere for a while."   
  
Lolli smirked and gave Rei a quick kiss. "Well as long as you're here."  
  
"Lets eat." April exclaimed and led the way to the table where they had an uneventful dinner and dessert.  
  
"I'm going to go now." Rei said as he gave his friend a quick kiss on the cheek. "Will you be alright?"  
  
April nodded and rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Those classes that I had to take on being able to let go and be alone again, they did a lot of good. I'm over the whole Jeremy thing now guys. You can leave at any time and I'll be alright."   
  
Lolli looked at April carefully. "Are you sure?"   
  
April nodded. "Yes. Now go home before your daughter falls asleep so you can't tell her her bedtime story."   
  
Rei chuckled and left the house and April quickly closed the door. April took a deep breath and turned on the alarm system and ran to the kitchen to grab the ever-present gun. After all, it was alright to be safe.....Wasn't it? 


End file.
